NATIONS 
LIBRARY    / 


The  Nation's   Library. 


The  outstanding  feature  of  the  NATION'S  LIBRARY 
is  specialised  information  by  the  most  capable  and  com- 
petent authorities,  and  every  subject  dealt  with  is 
brought  right  up  to  the  point  of  its  relationship  to  modern 
life  and  thought. 

Nothing  obsolete  finds  a  place  in  this  series;  each 
book  provides  ample  material  for  thought  in  its  particular 
direction  and  presents  knowledge  in  its  most  modern 
dress. 

The  volumes  already  issued  or  in  preparation 
include : — 

SOCIALISM  AND  SYNDICALISM.  PHILIP  SNOWDEN, 
M.P. 

AVIATION.     CLAUDE  GRAHAME- WHITE. 

SANE  TRADE  UNIONISM.  W.  V.  OSBORNE  (of  the 
Osborne  Judgment). 

INDUSTRIAL  GERMANY.  WILLIAM  HARBUTT 
DAWSON. 

EUGENICS  :  A  SCIENCE  AND  AN  IDEAL.  EDGAR 
SCHUSTER,  M.A.  (Oxon.),  D.Sc.,  Fellow  of  New 
College,  Oxford,  sometime  Galton  Research  Fellow 
in  National  Eugenics  at  the  University  of  London. 

THE  PRACTICAL  SIDE  OF  SMALL  HOLDINGS. 
JAMES  LONG,  Member  of  Departmental  Committee 
on  Small  Holdings. 

MODERN  VIEWS  ON  EDUCATION.  THISELTON 
MARK,  B.Sc.,  D.Lit.,  Lecturer  on  Education  in 
the  University  of  Manchester. 

THE  CASE  FOR  RAILWAY  NATIONALISATION. 
EMIL  DA  VIES  (Chairman  Railway  Nationalisation 
Society). 

THE     FEMINIST     MOVEMENT.       ETHEL     SNOWDEN 
(Mrs  Philip  Snowden). 
M.V.E.  A 


2  THE   NATION'S   LIBRARY— Continued 

CANADA  AS  AN  IMPERIAL  FACTOR.  HAMAR 
GREENWOOD,  M.P.,  Barrister-at-Law. 

A  HISTORY  OF  TRUSTS.  M.  E.  HIRST,  M.A.  (Birm.), 
sometime  Scholar  of  Newnham  College,  Cambridge. 
With  an  Introduction  by  F.  W.  HIRST,  Editor  of 
The  Economist. 

THE  CASE  AGAINST  RAILWAY  NATIONALISA- 
TION. EDWIN  A.  PRATT,  Author  of  American 
Railways. 

THE  PRINCIPLES  OF  EVOLUTION.  JOSEPH 
McCABE,  Author  of  The  Story  of  Evolution,  The 
Evolution  of  Mind,  etc. 

MODERN  COMMERCE:  A  SURVEY.  H.  H. 
BASSETT,  Editor  Financial  Review  of  Reviews. 

A  BOOK  OF  FOLK-LORE.  REV.  S.  BARING-GOULD, 
M.A. 

THE  MODERN  BRITISH  NAVY.  Commander 
CHARLES  ROBINSON,  R.N.  (Ret.). 

BURNS.  Rev.  LAUCHLAN  MACLEAN  WATT,  M.A., 
B.D.,  F.R.S.E.,  F.S.A.  (Scot.). 

OIL  FUEL.  VIVIAN  B.  LEWES,  F.I.C.,  F.C.S.,  Professor 
of  Chemistry  at  the  Royal  Naval  College,  Greenwich. 

CO-OPERATION  AND  CO-PARTNERSHIP.  LANG- 
FORD  LOVELL  PRICE,  M.A.,  Fellow  and  Treasurer 
of  Oriel  College,  Oxford,  Reader  in  Economic  History 
in  the  University  of  Oxford. 

POVERTY  AND  THE  STATE.  GEOFFREY  DRAGE, 
M.A.  (Oxon.). 

THE  STAR  WORLD.  A.  C.  DE  LA  C.  CROMMELIN, 
B.A.,  D.Sc.  (Oxon.),  Assistant  at  Royal  Observatory, 
Greenwich. 


MODERN  VIEWS  ON  EDUCATION 


The  roots   of  education,  if  it  is  to    be    of   any 
avail,  must  lie  in  the  very  hearts  of  the  people. 

GRAHAM  BALFOUR. 


MODERN  VIEWS 

QA^ 

EDUCATION 


THIS  ELTON  MARfr,B.Sc. 


BALTIMORE ; 

WARWICK  &  YORK,  Inc. 
PUBLISHERS 


|\/V 


PREFACE 

A  VERY  casual  glance  will  show  the  reader 
that  this  little  book  is  in  no  way  an  academic 
study.  It  does  not  aim  to  be  an  introduction 
to  the  study  of  education.  It  is  merely  a 
bird's-eye  view  of  some  of  those  features  of 
education  which  make  it  so  great  a  factor  in 
the  nation's  life. 

So  far  as  limits  of  space,  and  the  necessity 
of  selecting  some  only  of  the  more  salient  and 
popular  aspects  of  the  question  permit,  the 
following  chapters  deal  with  education  as  a 
people's  question,  one  that  affects  the  hearth 
and  home,  and  at  the  same  time  touches  the 
very  roots  of  national  prosperity  and  all- 
round  strength.  It  is  impossible  to  omit  all 
reference  to  the  teacher's  work  and  to  lose 
sight  entirely  of  his  interests  and  ideals 
whilst  chiefly  considering  those  of  the  citizen; 
but  the  schools  are  here  treated  mainly  from 
the  public  standpoint — as  they  concern  the 
citizens  who  support  them,  whether  privately 


369873 


PREFACE 

school  fees  or  publicly  through 
taxation. 

Little  more  would  have  been  needed  by 
way  of  preface,  but  that  since  the  book  was 
written  important  foreshadowings  have  been 
given  of  intended  legislation.  The  skilful  way 
in  which  curiosity  has  been  aroused  has  done 
something  to  awaken  a  renewed  interest  in 
education  as  the  nation's  greatest  work.  An 
optimistic  note  is  struck;  and  this  suggests, 
as  the  chapters  on  '  Organisation  for  Teaching* 
are  intended  to  show,  that  the  makings  of  a 
national  system  already  exist.  It  is  really  less 
correct  than  has  been  customary  of  late,  to 
describe  the  conditions  as  chaotic.  Reform  is 
needed;  but  'chaos'  would  be  irreclaimable. 
It  matters  not  whether  we  consider  the c  Public 
School'  system  which  is  invested  with  great 
traditions  and  has  proved  its  worth  on  so 
many  fields,  or  the  publicly  provided  system 
with  the  Elementary  School  at  its  base;  in 
each  case  the  makings  of  a  system  exist,  and 
each  is  capable  of  yielding  an  absolutely 
essential  contribution  to  the  national  life,  by 
enriching  the  service  which  Britain's  sons 
shall  render  to  the  Britain  of  to-morrow. 

Wales  and  Scotland  and  the  United  States 
of  America  (in  their  provision  of  free  High 


PREFACE  7 

Schools  and  State  Universities)  have  done 
something  to  show  us  the  way  with  respect 
to  a  publicly  provided  national  system  of 
education.  No  educational  legislation  will 
touch  the  root  of  the  matter  which  does  not 
open  out  ways  for  children  attending  ele- 
mentary schools  of  a  far  more  practical  and 
varied  character  than  as  yet  exist.  This  is  in 
part  a  question  of  the  improvement  of  the 
nature  and  conditions  of  elementary  school 
education.  It  is  surprising  to  read — and 
those  who  will  be  most  surprised  will  be  the 
teachers  themselves — from  the  pen  of  a  well- 
known  parliamentarian  that  'the  character 
of  the  education  given  in  the  primary  schools 
has  reached  a  very  high  standard,  and  little 
improvement  is  now  possible.'  More  strange 
still  that  these  should  be  the  words  of  an  able 
member  of  the  Labour  Party.  There  are 
several  references  in  the  following  pages 
which  show  that  improvements  are  not  only 
possible  but  are  urgently  needed,  if  the  schools 
are  to  be  satisfactory  in  themselves  and 
adequate  in  the  outlook  they  give  to  the 
scholars  upon  their  after  career  as  workers 
and  citizens. 

With  respect  to  the  *  Public  School '  system, 
a  significant  indication  of  room  for  reforrr 


8  PREFACE 

was  given  in  December,  1912,  when  the 
Head  Masters'  Association  discussed  in  private 
the  by  no  means  fresh  proposal  of  a  Royal 
Commission  to  inquire  into  the  relations 
between  the  Public  Schools  and  the  Univer- 
sities. 

Clearly,  at  a  time  when  many  things  are 
being  asked  for,  the  motto  must  be,  'First 
things  first !  *  Neglecting  '  secondary  *  educa- 
tion for  the  moment,  the  first  things  would 
appear  to  be :  a  more  sustained  care  and  a 
widened  opportunity  for  youths  between  the 
school-leaving  age  and,  say,  the  age  of 
seventeen  or  eighteen ;  and  to  do  more 
efficiently  the  work  we  are  already  aiming 
to  do  in  the  Elementary  School.  The  former 
is,  to  a  large  extent,  the  question  of  the 
Continuation  School,  with  its  corollary,  the 
acquiescence  of  employers  in  some  liberal 
scheme  of  release  from  labour  during  certain 
hours — SL  liberality  likely  to  yield  a  rich  return 
in  the  improved  workmanship  and  more 
efficient  manhood  of  the  future.  With  respect 
to  the  real  need  of  doing  better  the  work 
already  being  attempted  in  the  Elementary 
Schools,  it  is  almost  sufficient  to  say  that 
there  is  no  acceptable  definition  of  the  aim  and 
meaning  qf  education  which  accords  with  tJie 


PREFACE  9 

assigning  of  fifty  or  more  scholars  to  one  teacher, 
as  is  still  quite  commonly  the  case.  The  head 
master  of  Repton  has  lately  said  :  *  May  I  beg 
every  one  interested  in  education  to  give  the 
authorities  no  peace  until  classes  are  reduced 
to  a  maximum  of  twenty-five?'  Dr  W.  T. 
Harris,  late  United  States  Commissioner  of 
Education,  used  to  advocate  thirty  as  an 
ideal  number,  permitting  adequate  individual 
opportunity  side  by  side  with  sufficient 
community  life  and  feeling.  1  To  add  to  the 
teacher's  difficulty  in  dealing  with  these 
large  numbers,  there  are  often  normal,  pre- 
cocious, and  slow — if  not  deficient — children 
in  the  same  large  class;  and  for  some  of  these 
last-mentioned,  as  observation  and  hand-to- 
hand  experimenting  readily  show,  much  of 
the  school  work  has,  and  can  have,  little  or 
no  clear  meaning.  Most  towns  have  done 
something  for  mentally  defective  children. 
London  has  shown  how  much  humane  and, 
nationally  speaking,  economical  work  can  be 
done  by  schemes  for  cripples'  schools  and 
*  special  difficulty*  schools.  The  'special  diffi- 
culty* schools  are  for  backward  or  way  ward 

1  The  teachers  themselves,  expressing  their  views  at 
the  1913  Conference  of  the  National  Union  of  Teachers, 
are  at  present  content  to  re- affirm  that  'no  teacher 
should  be  directly  or  indirectly  responsible  for  more  than 
forty  children/ 


10  PREFACE 

children,  such  as  are  so  often  a  deadweight 
upon  the  hands  of  the  ordinary  class- 
teacher.  One  effect  has  been  to  dimmish  the 
number  of  children  who  would  otherwise  have 
had  to  be  sent — punitively — to  *  industrial' 
or  'reformatory'  schools. 

The  makings  of  a  national  system  already 
exist;  and  there  is  sufficient  clear  insight  into 
the  true  things  in  education  to  give  urgency 
to  the  demand  for  wider  movements  seeking 
ampler  results. 

There  appears  to  be  a  second  feature  in 
the  educational  planning  of  which  hints  have 
been  given,  namely,  that  it  will  be  tolerant  of 
diversity.  It  is  evidently  anticipated  that 
the  proposals  that  are  to  be  made  will  appeal 
to  an  awakened  and  generous  patriotism 
rather  than  serve  to  revive  the  disastrous, 
though  inevitable,  controversy  in  which  'the 
enthusiasm  which  passed  the  Act  of  1870 
frittered  itself  away.' 

Part  of  the  strength  of  English  education 
lies,  as  Mr  Sadler  wearies  not  in  telling  us,  in 
its  diversity.  Part,  accordingly,  of  the 
wisdom  of  the  legislator  lies  in  allowing  for 
diversity.  This  is  what  seems  to  be  contem- 
plated. 'We  ought,'  says  Lord  Haldane,  'to 


PREFACE  11 

put  education  first,  and  then  make  our 
arrangements  for  meeting  the  feelings  of 
those  who  have  strong  religious  convictions, 
which  must  be  respected  and  for  which 
provision  must  be  made.'  A  great  point  will 
be  gained  when  the  impracticability  of  any 
attempt  to  create  an  artificial  uniformity  in 
English  education  is  effectually  realised. 

So  far  as  this  question  is  touched  upon  in 
the  following  pages,  the  tendency  of  the 
suggestions  would  be,  within  fairly  wide 
limits  to  set  the  individual  schools  as  free  in 
respect  of  religious  instruction  as  they  are  in 
respect  of  other  school  subjects.  The  solution, 
when  it  comes,  will  need  to  be  at  once  religious 
in  effect  and  educational  in  spirit.  And  what 
appears  feasible  is  that  the  State  should  take 
over  responsibility  in  the  matter,  and  that, 
within  the  extremes  of,  say,  twenty  to  forty- 
five  or  fifty  minutes  daily,  schemes  of  religious 
instruction  should  be  drawn  up  in  the  schools 
and  presented  for  approval,  as  they  are  in 
other  subjects.  This  seems  to  be  the  way  of 
determining  with  the  greatest  approximation 
to  the  truth  how  much  and  what  kind  of 
religious  instruction  may  be  given  to  the 
maximum  advantage  of  the  children  attend- 
ing any  individual  school,  and  also  to  the 


12  PREFACE 

ultimate  furtherance  of  the  religious  life  of 
the  community.  The  long  discussion,  accom- 
panied by  a  certain  polemical  emphasis  on 
either  side,  has  left  many  keenly  desirous  of 
a  solution  which  shall  overlook  neither  the 
historical  considerations  which  belong  to  the 
question,  on  the  one  hand,  nor  the  needs  of 
the  hour,  on  the  other. 

The  State  alone  can  intervene  to  solve  what 
the  President  of  the  Board  of  Education  de- 
scribed in  March  of  this  year  as  fi  an  insoluble 
denominational  problem' — namely,  'how  to 
retain  the  use  of  the  denominational  school 
buildings  in  this  country,  to  permit  denomina- 
tional religious  education  to  be  given  in  those 
schools,  .  .  .  and  at  the  same  time  to  safe- 
guard the  ratepayer  from  contributing  to  the 
cost  of  denominational  religion.'  Might  not 
the  State  make  itself  sponsor  for  the  diversity 
which  it  would  be  educationally  uneconomical, 
even  if  it  were  politically  practicable,  to  dis- 
allow? Supposing  forty-five  minutes  daily 
were  the  limit  of  time  assignable  to  religious 
instruction  and  a  corresponding  proportion 
of  the  costs  of  elementary  education,  roughly 
one-seventh,  were  made  a  State  charge — or 
even  one-seventh  of  the  additional  cost  to 
the  ratepayer  of  elementary  education  since 


PREFACE  13 

the  non-provided  schools  received  rate-aid — 
the  ratepayer's  grievance  on  this  score  would 
seem  to  be  met.  Any  such  application  of  the 
principle  of  diversity  cuts  both  ways.  It  sets 
free  each  type  of  school,  provided  and  non- 
provided,  to  work  out  its  own  life. 

There  always  comes  a  moment  when  British 
people  yield  to  the  spur  of  the  reiteration  that 
they  are  behind  this  or  that  country  in  one  or 
other  matter.  At  the  present  moment  there 
can  be  little  doubt  that  England  is  ready  for 
an  educational  leap  forward.  The  situation 
is  crudely  summed  up  in  three  negatives: 
there  is  not  chaos ;  there  cannot  be  uni- 
formity ;  we  must  not  remain  at  a  stand- 
still. The  possibility  of  reform  turns  upon 
the  first ;  a  fresh  realisation  of  the  meaning 
of  educational  liberty  hinges  upon  the  second; 
the  progress  of  the  nation  depends  upon  the 
third.  With  regard  to  the  second  statement, 
the  principle  of  diversity  has,  of  course,  a 
wider  reference  than  that  of  the  denomina- 
tional problem.  It  looks,  amongst  other 
things,  in  the  direction  of  more  liberal  and 
quickening  methods  of  administration  and 
supervision.  The  publicly  provided  schools 
have  won  a  considerable  amount  of  freedom. 


14  PREFACE 

They  must  go  on  to  win  more.  Apart  from 
real  'liberty  to  teach,'  neither  Statute,  nor 
the  knowledge  of  right  aims  and  methods, 
nor  the  results  of  experience,  can  avail  to  any 
great  extent.  One  may  illustrate  the  point 
by  the  difference  between  the  expert  and  the 
4  faddist,'  of  whom  not  a  little  has  been  heard. 
The  tendency  of  the  faddist  is  to  think  that 
he  is  only  adequate  in  so  far  as  he  is  explicit; 
for  him  there  is  just  one  way  of  doing  a  thing. 
Whereas  the  expert  has  an  eye  for  what  is 
good,  and  the  more  original  it  is,  the  more  it 
differs  from  anything  he  has  seen  before,  the 
more  willing  may  he  be  to  see  in  it  initiative 
and  ingenuity.  In  school  administration 
America's  chief  source  of  success  lies  in  the 
leadership  of  men  and  women  who  have  this 
kind  of  instinct  for  school  life  and  for  educa- 
tion as  a  living  process,  an  intuitive  accept- 
ance and  appreciation  of  the  thing  that  works. 
We  may  hail  legislative  action,  but  these 
other  things  must  follow  if  the  best  results 
are  to  be  attained. 

Instances  are  given  in  the  following  chapters 
which  point  to  the  upspringing  of  a  new  faith 
in  education.  However  high  it  may  be  man's 
destiny  to  climb,  education  is  par  excellence 


PREFACE  15 

the  force  that  helps  to  raise  him:  education 
in  the  broadest  sense,  certainly,  but  an 
education  of  which  the  school  shall  be,  if  not 
the  mainspring,  at  least  the  acknowledged 
centre.  To  the  view,  held  by  some  who 
would  not  willingly  be  regarded  otherwise 
than  optimists,  that  man  has  reached  the 
limits  of  his  development,  and  henceforward 
it  is  the  environment  alone  that  becomes 
more  highly  organised,  the  teacher  answers 
with  an  opposing  faith.  He  is,  almost  by 
profession,  an  optimist,  believing  in  life, 
believing  in  the  future,  believing  in  man's 
possibilities.  He  stands  for  the  improvement 
of  the  race. 

This  little  book  is  a  very  slender  treatment 
of  a  great  theme.  What  is  good  in  it  is 
mainly  due  to  a  quickening  contact  with 
teachers  from  all  kinds  of  schools  and  in 
various  countries,  and  to  a  participation  in 
their  vision  of  an  ideal,  the  vision  of  man 
slowly  *  becoming  what  he  is.f 

THISELTON  MARK. 

THE  UNIVERSITY, 
MANCHESTER. 


The  waste  in  a  teacher's  workshop  is  the  lives 
of  men. 

ED.  THRING. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER   I 

INTRODUCTORY 

Some  Modern  Views  of  Education — Some  Criti- 
cisms of  Present-day  Education — National 
and  International  Importance  of  the 
Question  ...  «  .  21 


CHAPTER   II 

THE    PURPOSE    OF    THE    BOOK  I      A    JUSTIFICATION    OF 
THE   SCHOOL 

The  School  open  to  Community  Influences — 
Educational  Ideals  capable  of  Realisation 
— The  Present  Problem  :  a  Justification  of 
the  School  «...  32 


CHAPTER   III 

THE   NATION   AND   THE    SCHOOLS 

A  Deepened  Interest  in  Education  one  of  the 
Needs  of  the  Hour — Some  Mam  Aspects  of 
a  Nation's  Educational  Need  which  appeal 
to  British  People  with  Special  Force — 
Application  to  Schools  of  Various  Types  .  36 


18  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER   IV 

ORGANISATION   FOB   TEACHING  !     (I)     THE 
PROVISION   OF   SCHOOLS 

Some  Aspects  of  Public  Control — Supervision 
of  Publicly-provided  Schools — Note  on 
the  Correlation  of  the  Work  of  Central  and 
Local  Authorities  .....  48 


CHAPTER  V 

ORGANISATION   FOR   TEACHING  :     (2)     THE 
EDUCATIONAL    LADDER 

The  Public  School  System  (one  Type  of  Educa- 
tional Ladder) — The  Publicly-provided 
Educational  Ladder — Welsh  Intermediate 
Schools,  and  other  examples  .  ,  64 

CHAPTER   VI 

ON    SCHOOL   CURRICULA 

The  Question  of  a  Primary  Curriculum  of  Uni- 
versal Reference — Considerations  govern- 
ing the  choice  of  Primary  School  Studies 
— The  Secondary  School  Curriculum  .  85 

CHAPTER   VII 

EFFICIENCY-VALUE   OF   SCHOOL   STUDIES 

The  General  Idea  of  Efficiency-value  of  School 
Subjects — Geography  and  its  Efficiency- 
value  —  Elementary  Science  —  English 
Language  and  Literature  —  Educational 
Handwork  —  Secondary  Education  and 
Efficiency-values — The  University  .  .  106 


CONTENTS  19 

PAGB 

CHAPTER   VIlA— (Supplementary) 

A   SUGGESTIVE   TIME-TABLE   AND    SYLLABUS 

Courses  of  Study  in  Chicago  Elementary  Schools 

— Nature  Study  Courses  in  the  Same        .     133 

CHAPTER  VIII 

VOCATIONAL  ASPECTS   OF  EDUCATION 

Vocational  Education  in  the  Elementary  School 
— Vocational  work  as  a  Sequel  to  Elemen- 
tary School  Education  —  Vocational 
Features  in  the  Secondary  School  .  .140 

CHAPTER   IX 

THE  MONTESSORI    SPIRIT 

Description  of  the  Work  in  the  'Children's 
Houses' — An  Elementary  School  in  Eng- 
land— Some  Secondary  Schools  ,  .  172 

CHAPTER  X 

THE   CHILD   AND   THE   SCHOOL 

Education  as  Co-operation  with  Child-nature — 
Some  Physical  Conditions  affecting  the 
Child's  Education — Intellectual  Education 
in  relation  to  the  Child's  Development — 
Ethical  Aspects  of  School  Life — The  Home 
and  its  Influence  upon  the  Child  at  School 
— The  Child  Leaving  School — Early  Days 
of  the  After-school  Life  201 


20  CONTENTS 

PAOB 

CHAPTER  XI 

RESUM&  OF  CONCLUSIONS       •         .         .         •  241 

APPENDIX 252 

SHORT  BIBLIOGRAPHY 255 

INDEX           .......  261 


Modern  Views  on  Education 

CHAPTER  I 

INTRODUCTORY 

Slowly  this  powerful  race  works  its  way 
out  of  its  confining  ruts  and  its  clouded 
vision  of  things,  to  the  manifestation  of  those 
great  qualities  which  it  has  at  bottom— 
piety,  integrity,  good  nature,  and  good 
humour. — MATTHEW  ARNOLD. 

THE  purpose  of  the  few  chapters  that  follow 
is  to  link  together  a  keener  interest  in  the 
life  and  work  of  the  schools  with  that  fine 
quality  of  human  nature,  the  love  of  man 
for  the  child. 

Popular  views  of  education  are  part  of 
the  intellectual  and  social  environment  on 
which  the  school  depends  for  much  of  its 
vitality  and  success;  and  discussions  on 
education  will  always  be  more  or  less  futile 
unless  the  points  of  view  of  teacher  and 
citizen  are  brought  together  and  helped  to 
blend.  Every  chapter  in  this  short  book  aims 
at  this  blending  of  the  educational  forces. 
So  far  from  being  a  technical  study,  its 


22  MODERN  VIEWS 

purpose  is  to  view  education  largely  in  its 
public  aspects;  in  its  intimate  connection 
with  public  life;  in  its  subtle  dependence 
upon  public  co-operation  and  support. 

The  more  highly  specialised  education 
becomes  the  more  natural  it  might  seem  to 
think  of  the  school,  and  for  the  school  to 
think  of  itself,  as  a  thing  apart,  and  of  the 
education  that  is  given  as  something  peculiar 
to  the  school  itself.  But  this,  nine  times  out 
of  ten,  is  specialisation  beyond  education 
point.  Really,  we  are  all  educators  through 
the  schools.  There  is  a  division  of  labour, 
but  no  division  of  life.  Commonly,  we  think 
of  the  school  as  a  means.  Quite  as  truly  is 
it  an  end  in  itself.  It  is  the  nation's  public 
expression  of  how  it  thinks  of,  believes  in, 
and  lives  for  its  young  life.  The  education 
which  a  nation  gives  to  its  children  is  thus 
its  truest  reflection  of  itself. 

1.  Need  for  Constant  Adjustment  in  our 
Views  of  Education. — The  community  that  is 
in  any  true  sense  progressive  is  ever  gaining 
a  fresh  vision  of  itself  and  of  its  needs. 
Corresponding  changes  must  of  necessity 
occur,  and  even  with  some  rapidity,  in  our 
views  of  education.  Few,  fortunately,  are 
the  parents — and  the  few  not  the  thoughtful 


ON  EDUCATION  23 

— who  say,  when  thinking  of  their  children's 
education,  'It  was  good  enough  for  me,  and 
ought  to  be  good  enough  for  them.'  On  the 
contrary,  not  a  few  have  awakened  to  the 
fact  that  what  we  had  was  not  really  good 
enough  !  And  the  next  step,  whether  dic- 
tated by  sheer  logic,  or  by  humanity,  or  by 
patriotism,  is  to  ask  :  What  will  be,  so  far 
as  foresight  and  planning  can  secure  it, 
'good  enough'  for  our  children? 

Moreover,  education,  by  its  very  nature,  is 
anticipative.  Its  problems  are  the  problems 
of  to-morrow,  viewed,  so  far  as  is  possible, 
from  the  standpoint  of  to-day.  A  policy  of 
'standstill'  is  out  of  the  question;  still  more 
so,  a  falling  back  upon  the  standards  and 
methods  of  the  past.  We  shall  only  worthily 
show  honour  to  the  past  by  accepting  its 
aid  in  order  to  excel  it.  This  principle  applies 
to  the  whole  range  of  educational  activity, 
from  the  manner  of  organising  a  national 
department  of  education  to  the  management 
of  the  single  class  and  the  training  of  the 
single  child.  We  require  a  progressive  system 
to  meet  a  progressive  need. 

2.  Some  Modern  Views  of  the  Aim  of  Educa- 
tion.— The  only  definitions  of  the  meaning 
and  aim  of  education  that  have  much  value 


24  MODERN  VIEWS 

are  those  which  allow  for  this  progressive- 
ness.  They  are  the  formulae,  to  use  Herbert 
Spencer's  phrase,  of  a  'moving  equilibrium.' 
As  examples  of  such  definitions  of  the  aim  of 
education  we  have  those  of  Spencer  himself, 
'to  prepare  us  for  complete  living,'  and, 
a  phrase  occurring  in  the  same  context, 
*  unfolding  our  individualities  to  the  full  in 
all  directions.'  Another  striking  British  defini- 
tion of  the  aim  of  education  is  in  the  words 
of  Dr  James  Ward,  'The  aim  is  efficiency  for 
the  highest  life.'  And  somewhat  finely,  Mr 
Thomas  Burt,  at  a  time  when  he  was  the  only 
representative  of  labour  in  the  House  of 
Commons,  said  :  *  Education  has  been  advo- 
cated from  every  possible  point  of  view. 
It  has  been  said  that  education  will  reduce 
the  rates,  that  it  will  empty  the  prisons, 
that  it  will  enable  our  workmen  to  hold 
their  own  in  competition  with  other  nations. 
But  I  don't  believe  that  the  working  men  of 
England  want  education  on  any  one  of  these 
grounds;  but  they  want  it  because  it  will 
make  them  better,  happier,  and  wiser  men.' 
We  have  now  to  ask,  whether  public  opinion 
and  individual  (even  expert)  judgment  are 
entirely  reassuring  as  to  things  being  as  well 
with  us  educationally  as  we  should  wish. 


ON  EDUCATION  25 

8.  Some  Criticisms  of  Present  Day  Education. 
Criticisms  abound.  Educators  themselves 
lead  the  way  in  scrutinising  the  school  and 
its  performance.  From  self  criticism  and 
outside  criticism  no  type  of  school  escapes. 
This  is  well.  'These  are  counsellors/  as  said 
the  exiled  duke,  'that  feelingly  persuade  me 
what  I  am.'  Ideals  are  only  realised  through 
our  successively  discovering  wherein  we  fall 
short  of  them.  In  this  way  all  good  criticism 
is  in  reality  co-operation,  and  in  spite  of  an 
imposing  array  of  professional  advisers — 
administrative,  organising,  and  inspectorial — 
in  nation,  city,  and  county,  suggestions  of 
value  may  come  from  the  unprofessional 
citizen,  especially  from  the  parent.  Many 
things  are  hidden  from  the  officially  wise 
and  prudent.  Hence,  rather  inviting  than 
resenting  criticism,  we  give  ear  with  some 
eagerness  to  what  the  critics  have  to  say. 

It  is  not  long  since  we  were  half-startled 
by  the  very  title  of  a  book  by  Mr  Harold 
Gorst :  The  Curse  of  Education;  though  his 
readers  soon  found  that  it  was  not  education 
in  itself  but  the  manner  and  method  of  much 
of  it  with  which  the  writer  was  out  of  patience. 
Some  complain  that  the  Empire,  its  prowess 
and  commerce,  is  more  thought  of  than  the 

M.V.E.  B 


26  MODERN  VIEWS 

child,  the  future  citizen  of  the  Empire. 
Others  assure  us  that  many  children  are 
spoiled  at  school  for  careers  for  which  they 
were  otherwise  fitted,  and  are  only  half 
fitted  for  the  careers  which  they  choose.  Mr 
Bernard  Shaw's  characteristic  expression  has 
frequently  been  quoted  :  '  My  education  was 
interrupted  by  my  schooling.5  'Past  mistakes 
in  our  elementary  school  methods  have  been/ 
we  are  told,  'recognised  by  all  educationalists; 
they  are  felt  by  all  workers.' 

Parents  every  now  and  then  publish  com- 
plaints of  the  great  Public  Schools,  and  of  the 
Preparatory  Schools  which  prepare  boys  foi 
them.  Witness  the  English  Review  for 
September,  1912,  and  the  continuance  of  the 
discussion  in  the  October  number.  Again, 
in  a  recent  book,  of  special  interest  owing  to 
the  long  experience  its  author  has  had  of 
English  education,  the  late  Senior  Inspector 
of  Elementary  Schools  discusses  What  is 
and  What  might  be.  He  does  not  think  that 
the  defects  of  the  elementary  schools  are 
graver  than  those  of  other  educational  insti- 
tutions, rather  that  they  are  less  grave 
because  less  deeply  rooted.  Yet,  making  all 
exceptions,  we  find  him  saying,  'Whatever 
else  the  current  system  of  education  may  do 


ON  EDUCATION  27 

to  the  child,  there  is  one  thing  which  it  cannot 
fail  to  do  to  him, — to  blight  his  mental 
growth.' 

We  need  not  think  that  this  debate  upon 
the  education  of  the  hour,  with  the  running 
fire  of  criticism  which  accompanies  it,  is 
confined  to  any  one  country.  In  the  work 
and  staffing  of  their  schools,  American  educa- 
tors are  aware  of  grave  defects,  some  of  which 
they  see  to  be  extremely  difficult  to  make 
good.  From  France  expressions  of  dis- 
appointment in  results  are  to  be  heard. 
Again,  the  Vice-President  of  the  Parliamentary 
Commission  for  Public  Instruction  at  St 
Petersburg  said  in  1908  :  'Ever  since  1900 
people  in  Russia  speak  only  of  the  radical 
reform  of  the  system  of  education.'  The 
German  Emperor  has  seen  the  necessity  of 
intervening  in  order  to  secure  a  modernising 
of  secondary  education  in  Germany;  and  the 
excessive  intellectualism  of  all  school  work 
in  that  country  is  often  remarked  upon. 

Indeed,  a  summary  statement,  which  would 
find  sympathetic  hearers  in  all  countries  that 
have  made  any  real  point  of  education,  may 
be  quoted  in  the  words  of  a  German  writer : 
'Gentle  Reader,  have  you  ever  felt  that  the 
school  you  used  to  attend  as  a  child  really 


28  MODERN  VIEWS 

gave  you  the  education  which  you  now  see 
would  have  been  the  best?  Are  your  own 
youngsters,  at  this  very  minute,  being  edu- 
cated so  as  to  turn  out  quite  healthy,  and 
capable  of  doing  some  real  good  in  the  world? 
Do  you  find  them  content  with  their  life  at 
school?  Or  do  they  make  constant  com- 
plaints about  the  "awfully  hard  Latin  and 
Greek  prose,"  about  the  "endless  work," 
"the  dreary  lessons"?  Did  you  ever  put  to 
yourself  this  question :  Is  there  anywhere 
in  the  world  to  be  found  a  school  where,  in 
place  of  a  mere  one-sided  training  of  the 
understanding,  or  mere  stuffing  of  the 
memory,  one  might  find  an  education  and 
harmonious  culture  of  the  whole  being?' 
This  writer  had,  he  said,  found  such  a  school, 
in  a  land  which  for  the  present  he  would  not 
name;  in  'neither  Germany  nor  France; 
nevertheless,  not  in  the  moon/ 

So  much  for  the  actuality  of  criticism :  a 
grindstone  always  at  hand  on  which,  granted 
otherwise  favourable  conditions,  those  who  are 
professional  teachers  may  sharpen  their  tools. 

4.  National  and  International  Importance  of 
the  Question. — Each  nation  of  necessity  studies 
its  own  schools.  They  are  nearest  to  hand; 
they  are  its  own  charge  and  care.  But  from 


ON   EDUCATION  29 

a  scientific  and  human  standpoint  the  interest 
is  quite  as  truly  international  as  national. 
This  is  shown  by  many  happy  tokens. 
Every  one  knows  of  the  cordiality  with 
which  foreign  visitors  are  received  by  American 
teachers.  Naas,  in  Sweden,  is  a  great  Swedish- 
international  centre  of  Sloyd  instruction. 
Jena,  in  Germany,  is  a  similar  centre  of  general 
educational  study.  *We  found,  indeed,  at 
Jena/  writes  an  English  head  master,  'in 
an  eminent  degree,  that  cordial  welcome 
which  seems  to  flow  from  the  German  heart 
to  all  who  search  for  knowledge,  and  are 
willing  to  work.  Thanks  to  the  freedom  of 
their  intercourse,  their  easy  social  customs, 
and  the  total  absence  of  reserve,  in  a  few 
days  we  had  lived  years.  In  Jena  were  all 
nationalities,  all  brought  together  by  one 
force,  the  wish  to  learn/ 

In  1902  the  present  writer  was  visiting 
schools  in  Holland  when  the  bitterness  of 
feeling  following  the  Boer  War  was  at  its 
height.  Through  a  casual  meeting  with  a 
perfect  stranger  he  was  brought  into  touch 
with  a  Rotterdam  merchant  keenly  interested 
in  education.  Rapidly  arranging  his  business, 
this  gentleman  gave  the  writer  there  and  then 
all  that  remained  of  his  morning — some  two 


80  MODERN  VIEWS 

hours;  and,  after  returning  to  his  office  in 
the  middle  of  the  day,  met  him  again  in  the 
afternoon  for  an  equal  period  in  order  to 
impart  a  real  knowledge  of  the  work  of  the 
schools  in  that  educationally  progressive  city. 

In  many  such  ways  we  are  learning  that 
teachers  and  students  of  education,  the  world 
over,  form  one  great  community,  a  single  army 
of  workers  for  the  world's  well-being;  and  that, 
just  as  knowledge  becomes  more  and  more  a 
single  world-power,  so  is  education  throughout 
all  lands  one  vast  united  and  uniting  force 
making  for  the  good  of  man.  There  is  no 
clearer  view  to  be  had  of  the  solidarity  or 
oneness  of  mankind,  especially  in  the  pursuit 
of  progress  and  the  search  for  the  higher 
paths,  than  in  the  manifest  solidarity  and 
oneness  of  the  world's  educational  forces. 

Thus  a  true  educational  spirit  gives  the 
clue  to  the  higher  conceptions  of  the  meaning 
of  empire.  Our  best  conceptions  of  empire  are 
in  keeping  with  the  law  of  solidarity.  Never, 
probably,  has  the  ideal  of  the  true  educator 
been  more  eloquently  portrayed  than  in 
Matthew  Arnold's  tribute  to  his  father,  the 
great  head  master  of  Rugby :  nor  could  an 
imperial  nation  dream  of  higher  tribute  from 
dependent  races. 


ON   EDUCATION  81 


CHAPTER  II 

THE  PURPOSE  OF  THE  BOOK  :    A  JUSTIFICATION 
OF   THE    SCHOOL 

The  foremost  teachers  of  the  foremost 
nations  are  the  chief  creators  of  the  life 
that  is  to  be. — THRING. 

EVEN  in  so  rapid  a  survey,  a  certain  dis- 
tinction needs  to  be  drawn  between  new 
schools  and  schools  with  great  traditions. 
Yet  each  owes  its  character  to  the  life  of  the 
community,  and  is  a  centre  of  community 
ideals.  For  the  public  spirit  of  past  genera- 
tions lives  on  in  the  traditions  of  our  older 
schools.  And  this  has  its  educational  value, 
inasmuch  as  just  pride  in  one's  school  is  one 
way  of  acceptance  of  social  ideals  and  social 
responsibility.  But  a  new  school  may  also 
attune  its  life  to  what  is  best  in  the  national 
spirit  in  such  a  way  as  to  stir  within  its 
scholars  'high  hopes  of  living  to  be  brave 
men,  and  worthy  patriots.'  Each  school  in 
its  own  way  may  succeed  in  making  men  and 
women  of  intellectual  vigour,  balance,  and 
alertness;  of  tempered  character  and  noble 
purpose;  fitted  to  play  their  part  in  the 


82  MODERN  VIEWS 

physical,    intellectual,    and    moral    improve- 
ment of  a  strong  and  free  race. 

Educational  ideals,  that  is  to  say,  are 
capable  of  realisation.  History  amply  proves 
this.  In  ancient  times  the  Spartans  adopted 
a  system  of  education  which  so  completely 
harmonised  with  their  ideals,  and  for 
defensive  purposes  with  their  necessities  as 
a  people,  that,  so  long  as  they  adhered  to  it 
and  remained  on  their  own  soil,  they  were 
all  but  invincible.  So  Plutarch,  in  his  life  of 
Philopcemen,  the  conqueror  of  Sparta,  in  the 
second  century,  tells  us.  Philopoemen  found 
that,  before  he  could  finally  overcome  the 
Spartans,  he  had  to  uproot  their  educational 
system  and  institutions  and  compel  them 
to  give  their  children  an  Athenian  education. 
We  may,  perhaps,  disregard,  as  difficult  of 
proof,  the  suggestion  that  through  Rousseau's 
influence  Spartan  ideals  became  so  fashion- 
able with  French  parents  of  his  own  and  the 
succeeding  generations  that,  in  co-operation 
with  the  new  consciousness  of  individual 
manhood  which  the  Revolution  had  inspired, 
they  formed  one  of  the  chief  means  of  furnish- 
ing Napoleon  with  the  army  with  which  he 
overran  Europe.  A  better  substantiated 
example  is  that  of  Germany,  whence  the 


ON  EDUCATION  33 

philosopher  Fichte  at  the  beginning  of  last 
century  went  to  visit  Pestalozzi's  famous 
school,  and  came  back  with  profound  con- 
victions as  to  the  possibilities  of  a  rightly 
devised  system  of  education.  He  embodied 
these  convictions  in  a  series  of  Addresses  to 
the  German  Nation,  delivered  at  Berlin,  in 
which  he  argued  that  the  one  way  to  redeem 
the  German  nation  was  to  organise  and 
vitalise  the  education  of  the  people.  An 
early  result  was  that  the  State  began  to  give 
financial  support  to  educational  experiments. 
This  was  in  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  and  in  its  light  we  have  to  consider 
the  frequently  repeated  statement  that  'the 
schoolmasters  of  Germany  won  the  war  of 
1870.' 

These  illustrations  go  to  show  that  educa- 
tional ideals  are  realisable;  and,  though  the 
test  in  each  case  is  strength  in  war,  we  have 
probably  not  yet  reached  a  period  in  the 
world's  history  when  war-power  has  ceased 
to  be  one  test  of  the  comparative  physical 
might  and  mental  and  moral  resources  of 
a  nation. 

It  can  scarcely  be  in  doubt  that  the  nation 
which  rises  highest  in  and  through  its  schools 
will  be  the  invincible  nation  of  the  future 


34  MODERN  VIEWS 

in  whatever  spirit-quickening  tussles — other, 
one  hopes,  than  war — the  future  may  have 
in  store : — 

Where  the  children  are  taught  to  be  laws  to  them- 
selves, and  to  depend  on  themselves; 

Where  the  city  of  the  healthiest  fathers  stands; 
Where  the  city  of  the  best-bodied  mothers  stands, — 
There  the  great  city  stands. 

Here  are  factors  alike  of  school  power  and 
of  empire. 

The  Present  Problem :  a  Justification  of 
the  School. — An  education  which  achieves 
anything  like  the  results  of  which  we  are 
speaking  is,  of  course,  an  effect  of  many 
causes.  The  home,  the  school,  society,  the 
whole  life — conscious,  instinctive,  subcon- 
scious— of  the  child  himself,  even  the  physical 
environment  of  air  and  scenery,  are  playing 
their  part.  The  school  life  of  the  child, 
however,  is  the  part  of  his  education  which 
we  collectively  plan,  and  the  problem  before 
us  is  intensely  practical.  We  need  to  con- 
sider, and  in  all  possible  ways  to  seek  to 
enhance,  the  value  of  the  education  which 
the  school  offers. 

The  appeal  of  the  hour  continually  changes; 
and  it  is  to  the  nation's  varied  need  that  the 


ON  EDUCATION  85 

school  gives  answer.  At  the  time  that  the 
bulk  of  this  book  was  being  written,  the 
nation  was  alert  in  the  almost  instant  expecta- 
tion of  a  call  to  arms.  In  making  our  response 
to  every  such  call  we  shall  depend  much  upon 
the  answer  that  the  schools  will  have  given  in 
strengthening  for  the  qualities  that  make  for 
success.  At  the  present  moment,  the  call 
comes  rather  from  the  inner  life  of  the 
nation.  It  is  for  a  *  national  system  of  educa- 
tion,' meaning  that  the  schools  shall  be  lifted 
to  a  higher  plane  in  their  task  of  nation- 
building — the  making  of  men,  citizens,  and 
workers.  It  is  only  when  the  nation  takes 
counsel  with  itself  in  this  way  that  the  school 
can  respond  to  the  nation's  need.  For  the 
school  is  what  the  people  collectively  make  it. 
Especially  in  what  is  done  for  the  rank  and 
file  of  the  nation,  in  creating  for  the  scholars 
who  pass  through  our  elementary  schools 
diversity  of  opportunity  and  enlargement  of 
life,  will  the  nation  find  its  sure  reward. 


36  MODERN   VIEWS 


CHAPTER   III 

THE    NATION    AND   THE   SCHOOLS 

Whatever  we  wish  to  see  introduced  into 
the  life  of  a  nation  must  be  first  introduced 
into  its  schools. — VON  HUMBOLDT. 

1.  A  Deepened  Interest  in  Education  one 
of  the  Special  Needs  of  the  Hour. — The  oft- 
quoted  words  at  the  head  of  this  chapter 
have  almost  the  force  of  an  axiom.  Yet 
'the  subject  of  education/  says  one,  'has 
never  really  interested  the  voting  class.' 
'It  may  appear  a  somewhat  remarkable  fact/ 
writes  another,  'that  England,  the  birth- 
place of  modern  industry,  is  the  last  of  the 
great  nations  to  build  up  its  educational 
system.' 

Political  philosophy  has  never  wavered  in 
its  insistence  that  a  democracy  must  be 
educated.  A  democracy  is  a  nation  in  the 
act  and  process  of  self -creation;  and  progress 
is  the  law  of  its  life.  In  a  living  democracy, 
the  'land  of  promise'  of  the  fathers  becomes 
the  birthland  of  their  children  :  the  achieve- 
ments of  yesterday  become  the  heritage  of 


ON   EDUCATION  37 

to-day.  Education  can  do  much  in  a  nation 
which  is  alive  in  this  fashion.  It  will  know 
how  to  turn  to  account  spontaneous  manifes- 
tations of  the  nation's  inner  life — how  to 
interpret  them,  and  how  to  use  them. 

Whilst  these  chapters  are  being  written 
one  such  service  has  been  rendered  by 
Vice-Chancellor  Sadler  of  Leeds  University, 
in  his  description  of  a  type  springing  up  in 
our  midst — youthful,  distinctly — which  is 
*  self -confident,  insatiable  in  its  appetite  for 
new  experiences  and  sensations,  buoyant, 
swift-minded,  gay,  but  often  ruthless  towards 
the  incompetent,  quick  but  fickle  in  its 
intimacies,  humorously  tolerant  in  its  judg- 
ments, stoical  in  danger,  unfrightened  of  the 
future,  though  uncertain  of  the  issues  which 
the  future  might  bring.' 

Not  to  know  a  type  like  this  when  it  is 
with  us  is  both  to  misunderstand  and  to  be 
misunderstood;  and  to  fail  in  consequence 
in  our  educational  effort. 

Britain  possesses  in  her  children  material 
second  to  none  in  the  world.  But  our  children 
need  a  first-class  education — one  that  shall 
qualify  them  for  empire  amongst  peoples 
of  every  race  and  clime. 

Again,  education  can  take  account  of  the 


88  MODERN    VIEWS 

factors  which  give  to  a  nation's  development 
its  common  direction  and  tendency.  The 
French  political  philosopher,  Montesquieu, 
has  spoken  of  Britain  as  'the  one  nation  in 
the  world  which  has  best  known  how  to  avail 
itself  of  those  three  great  things — religion, 
trade,  and  liberty.'  These  national  hold- 
fasts must  be  the  educator's  clue :  the  hint 
also  to  the  nation  as  to  the  ends  for  which 
school  and  education  are  to  stand.  British 
education  will  need  to  be  attuned  to  these 
fundamental  faiths;  to  spring  from  them; 
to  react  upon  them  and  make  them  fruitful. 
And  in  more  specific  ways  education  can 
adjust  itself  to  the  nation's  need.  It  is,  for 
example,  a  British  characteristic  to  be  a 
little  proud  of  a  reputation  for  being  'the 
best  muddlers  through  in  the  world.'  Pos- 
sessed of  the  knack  of  accomplishment,  we 
are  apt  sometimes  not  to  economise  its  cost. 
Goethe,  as  Lord  Haldane  reminds  us,  said 
that  'the  Englishman  is  only  short  of  intelli- 
gence/ which  can  only  mean  that  we  are  too 
little  given  to  the  habit  of  looking  well  ahead 
and  planning  for  success.  Energy  spent  in 
getting  out  of  corners  is  subject,  from  the 
standpoint  of  efficiency,  to  a  considerable 
subtraction.  It  is  in  keeping  with  our  mood 


ON   EDUCATION  39 

to  give  a  ready  ear  to  the  story  of  Sir  Francis 
Drake's  famous  game  of  bowls,  finished  after 
he  was  told  that  the  Armada  was  in  sight. 
The  time  spent  in  play  may  have  disguised 
a  good  deal  of  hard  thinking.  If  so,  this 
should  be  added  to  the  story.  Otherwise 
the  frequent  relating  of  the  incident  falls 
too  much  into  line  with  a  British  tendency 
which  needs  no  encouraging.  But  a  right 
education  is  remedial.  It  is  the  work  of 
education  to  cultivate  the  habit  of  planning 
for  success :  Savoir  pour  pr&voir,  afin  de 
pouvoir. 

2.  The  Main  Aspects  of  a  Nation's  Educa- 
tional Need  which  appeal  to  British  People 
with  special  Force. — The  strength  of  a 
modern  nation  depends  upon  the  possession 
by  its  people  of  all  classes  of  power  in  work, 
the  spirit  of  citizenship,  and  virile  personality. 
Work,  citizenship,  individuality — these  are 
the  nation's  primary  needs.  And  in  this 
need  for  the  cultivation  and  strengthening 
of  work-power  and  character-power  (which 
includes  good  citizenship)  the  nation  looks 
to  its  schools.  Viewing  various  types  of 
school  from  this  standpoint,  not  only  do 
the  essentials  of  the  education  to  be  given  in 
each  stand  out  more  clearly,  but  we  have 


40  MODERN  VIEWS 

a  standard  whereby  to  judge  of  remediable 
defects.  It  is  not  possible  to  separate  these 
three  essentials.  For  where,  whether  in  the 
course  of  school  education  or  as  a  result  of 
it,  either  power  in  work,  or  the  spirit  of 
citizenship,  or  strength  of  individual  char- 
acter is  conspicuously  lacking,  some  degree 
of  failure  in  respect  of  the  other  two  is 
inevitable. 

Should  our  public  schools,  for  example, 
boast  of  their  esprit  de  corps  and  the  masculine 
self-reliance  of  the  men  they  train,  yet  tend 
to  regard  hard  work  on  the  part  of  the  average 
boy  as  'bad  form,'  both  the  quality  of  the 
patriotism  that  is  developed  and  the  grounds 
on  which  self-reliance  rests  are  seriously 
impaired.  Apart  from  sheer  thoughtfulness 
and  the  habit  of  taking  pains  both  to  know 
and  to  plan,  daring  itself  falls  short  of  the 
highest  courage,  and  lives  may  be  sacrificed 
in  vain.  Every  reader  will  remember  the 
irreparable  loss  to  British  homes  and  the 
British  nation  of  the  fearless  young  officers 
who  in  the  early  stages  of  the  Boer  War 
exposed  themselves  to  the  deadly  fire  of  the 
Boer  rifles.  Even  foreign  onlookers,  in  no 
ttay  because  of  their  sympathy  with  the 
British  cause,  lamented  the  needless  sacrifice. 


ON  EDUCATION  41 

With  this  kind  of  Public  School  boy  courage 
it  is  impossible  not  to  feel  a  kindling  sym- 
pathy, and  to  think  of  it  with  a  certain  pride. 
It  is  proof  that  the  blood  has  not  deteriorated. 
Moreover,  it  is  dash  of  this  kind  which  often 
brings  in  the  winner.  But  when  it  is  not 
intellectualised — inspired  and  sustained  by 
an  adequate  insight  into  the  relation  between 
means  and  ends — even  such  courage  loses 
some  of  its  worth.  It  is  'magnificent — but 
not  war.' 

One  would  only  utter  here  words  which 
should  be  as  an  added  wreath  upon  the  graves 
of  brave  men.  Yet  the  view  is  held  that 
habits  of  thoughtfulness  and  of  planning 
for  success  would  go  far  to  prevent?  such 
needless  losses.  (The  general  question  of  the 
public  school  curriculum,  which  may  have 
much  to  do  with  the  narrowing  of  the  school 
life  and  of  its  influence,  need  not  be  touched 
upon  at  this  point.  'The  very  general  dis- 
like which  it  is  idle  to  deny  boys  have  for 
work/  says  the  author  of  Croesus  Minor, 
a  book  which  treats  racily  of  Public  School 
education,  'is  not  so  much  antipathy  to 
work  as  to  the  particular  dose  which  is 
presented  to  them.'  If  a  course  of  studies 
that  would  have  had  a  high  efficiency  value 


42  MODERN  VIEWS 

for  average  British  boys  if  only  they  had 
happened  to  live  some  centuries  ago  is  offered 
them  to-day,  they  are  almost  bound  to  treat 
it  lightly). 

Other  Boarding  Schools — or  mixed  Day 
and  Boarding  Schools — present  the  widest 
possible  variations  in  merit.  But  the  same 
three  tests  should  be  applied.  If  they  stimu- 
late to  work,  strengthen  character,  and 
evoke  esprit  de  corps,  they  fulfil  the  essential 
conditions. 

In  the  majority  of  cases  these  schools  are 
private  ventures  on  the  part  of  those  at  the 
head  of  them,  and  the  arrangement  for  a 
boy's  or  girl's  education  at  one  of  them  is  a 
direct  bargain  between  parent  and  proprietor. 
Many  parents  are  careful  in  their  choice  of 
a  school;  most,  no  doubt,  think  they  are : 
all  need  to  be.  A  school  ought  not  to  be  too 
small  to  permit  the  growth  and  maintenance 
of  a  good  public  spirit.  A  school  with  a  few 
big  boys,  a  few  little  boys,  and  a  few  middle- 
sized  ones  is  seldom  desirable.  Not  to  speak 
of  other  serious  dangers  there  is  too  little 
public  life;  and  the  type  of  character  that 
is  fostered  tends  to  artificiality.  There  is 
likely  also  to  be  too  little  emulation  in  work. 
A  good  playground  and  playing-field  life  is 


ON  EDUCATION  48 

a  healthy  sign  in  any  school.  Virility,  esprit 
de  corps,  and  (for  young  people)  a  valuable 
type  of  purposiveness  grow  by  participation 
in  good  games.  Both  north  and  south  of 
the  Tweed  there  are  boarding  schools,  in 
the  hands  often  of  old  Public  School  boys, 
which  in  a  large  measure  succeed  in  incor- 
porating the  public  school  ideal  and  the  spirit 
of  public  school  traditions  with  zest  for  work 
and  earnestness  of  purpose.  The  value  of  such 
schools  in  the  nation's  life  is  self-evident. 

Some  Day  Schools  succeed  in  being  really 
great.  There  are  always,  of  course,  the  'train- 
boys'  and  'train-girls/  i.e.  those  who  come 
in  by  train  in  time  for  school  in  the  morning 
and  leave  by  the  first  train  they  are  allowed 
to  catch  in  the  afternoon.  Such  may  often 
get  little  more  in  addition  to  the  life  of  the 
home,  than  schoolroom,  train,  and  home 
lessons.  But  many  of  these  are  caught  up 
and  helped  by  the  contagion  of  a  good  school- 
spirit.  Playing-fields,  holiday  tramps  and 
holiday  camps,  school  clubs,  and  the  leader- 
ship in  work  and  recreation  of  large-hearted 
men  and  women  as  masters  and  mistresses, 
make  for  keenness  of  life,  good  citizenship, 
and,  with  the  co-operation  of  the  home,  for 
force  of  character. 


44,  MODERN  VIEWS 

Coming  to  the  Public  Elementary  Schools 
— they  are  the  schools  which  the  nation 
directly  supports  for  its  own  ends.  One 
country  after  another  has  realised  that 
national  salvation  is  at  stake  in  its  educa- 
tional planning.  America,  for  example,  not 
solely  because  it  is  a  democracy,  but  because 
it  is  a  cosmopolitan  democracy,  has  to  assimi- 
late some  of  the  cruder  elements  of  older 
civilisations.  The  flag,  which  we  are  too  shy 
or  too  diffident  in  displaying  in  our  schools, 
is  there  superabundantly  in  evidence  as  the 
emblem  of  citizenship.  *  American  citizen* 
is  America's  watchword.  In  that  name 
a  Western  civilisation  has  to  be  built  up.  Our 
elementary  schools  might  well  borrow  the 
suggestion  and  do  more  to  foster  and  make 
intelligent  the  fine  ideals  of  British  citizen- 
ship. Quite  recently  an  English  head  master 
published  what  struck  him  as  an  extremely 
significant  portion  of  a  letter  which  he  had 
received  from  a  boy  who  had  just  left  his 
school  and  emigrated  with  his  parents  to  the 
States.  *  Every  Monday  morning  we  stand 
and  say:  "I  pledge  allegiance  to  my  flag 
and  to  my  country's  cause  for  which  it  stands 
• — one  nation,  indivisible,  with  liberty  and 
justice  for  all"  ...  saluting  at  the  word 


ON  EDUCATION  45 

'  It  would  not  be  excessive  if,  in 
addition  to  Empire  Day  and  national  com- 
memorations, we,  at  the  beginning  of  each 
term,  were  to  make  use  of  some  similar 
reminder  that  we,  teachers  and  scholars 
(with  parents  if  they  would  also  come  to  the 
school  re-opening),  are  commencing  a  new 
period  of  work  together  in  Britain's  name. 
The  one  school  in  which  the  writer  has  seen 
the  Union  Jack  flying  from  a  flagstaff  in 
the  school  grounds  on  ordinary  days  is  a 
country  school  in  the  heart  of  Cheshire, 
under  a  mistress — a  school  in  which  there  are 
fine  features  of  many  kinds. 

The  nation,  again,  looks  to  the  Elementary 
School  to  prepare  the  bulk  of  its  children 
for  their  working  days.  What,  however, 
can  we  reasonably  expect?  Under  the  teach- 
ing conditions  which  still  commonly  prevail, 
the  work  of  the  individual  tends  to  be  lost 
sight  of,  if  not  actually  lost,  in  the  work  of 
the  mass.  Often,  and  of  necessity,  it  becomes 
less  true  to  say  that  the  children  work,  than 
that  they  are  worked.  This  is  partly  because 
we  have  not  yet  seen  the  end  of  the  effects 
of  the  old  system  of  payment  by  results; 
but  far  more  because  the  classes  are  almost 
everywhere  too  large.  In  the  new  schools 


46  MODERN  VIEWS 

in  the  city  of  Rotterdam  the  classrooms  are 
planned  for  not  more  than  thirty-five  or  forty 
scholars  with  one  teacher.  This  has  been  the 
rule  there  for  more  than  ten  years.  With  us, 
the  average  class  is  far  too  big,  and  from 
teachers  so  conditioned  we  are  asking  results 
of  vital,  even  sacred,  moment.  We  are  asking 
them  to  give  back  to  us  at  the  close  of  their 
school  days  British  children  equipped  for 
work,  loyal  and  patriotic  in  spirit,  strengthened 
in  will  and  character,  and,  as  many  would 
add,  swayed  by  motives  answering  to  the 
deeper  things  in  human  nature  and  the 
higher  things  in  human  aspiration. 

We  have  a  certain  kind  of  faith  in  the 
school.  But  with  all  our  business  instincts 
we  have  not  yet  organised  a  system  of  ele- 
mentary education  which  half  pleases  any- 
body. The  committee  on  industrial  educa- 
tion, for  example,  in  their  report  issued  in 
1906,  say  that  children  from  our  elementary 
schools  are  not  able  to  think  for  themselves. 
They  have  had,  that  is  to  say,  eight  years  of 
schooling  from  infant  years  onwards,  and  they 
have,  according  to  this  report,  not  even 
learned  to  use  their  own  brains  !  They  are 
not  well  grounded  in  essentials,  continues 
the  report,  and  not  accurate  in  work.  If 


ON  EDUCATION  47 

the  ratepayer  and  taxpayer  does  not  want 
to  know  what  is  wrong,  is  it  not  time  that  he 
did?  What  sort  of  educational  ladder  can 
we  erect  on  a  rickety  base  of  this  kind? 
How  are  we  to  expect  work-power  and 
character-power — each  of  them  a  vital  neces- 
sity in  a  nation  that  would  be  strong?  The 
streets  will  not  supply  them :  the  homes  are 
too  prone  to  hand  over  their  part  of  the 
responsibility  in  the  matter  to  the  schools. 
Continuation  classes,  the  Boy  and  Girl  Scouts 
movements,  lads'  clubs,  some  of  the  best 
Sunday  schools  with  social  offshoots  such 
as  Life-saving  Brigades,  and  similar  enter- 
prises do  something.  But  no  one  will  pretend 
that  this  is  enough. 

The  ordinary  day  schools  must  be  enabled 
to  accomplish  more.  Smaller  classes  are  the 
first  and  absolute  essential.  Trained  teachers 
throughout,  and  scope  for  the  application  of 
the  results  of  their  training — professional  train- 
ing, that  is  to  say,  and  professional  liberty 
are  the  second  essential.  These  two  things 
granted  by  the  nation's  decree,  we  might 
have  a  great  and  true  education,  second  to 
none  in  the  world,  superior  to  most. 


48  MODERN   VIEWS 


CHAPTER  IV 

ORGANISATION   FOR   TEACHING 

Never  rest  till  you  have  got  all  the  fixed 
machinery  for  work  the  best  possible.  The 
waste  in  a  teacher's  workshop  is  the  lives 
of  men.  And  what  becomes  of  the  waste? 
.  .  .  They  live  on,  and  they  hang  heavy 
on  the  neck  of  all  progress;  they  form  the 
cumberers  of  the  ground,  or  worse,  who 
drag  down  the  national  life. — THRING  : 
An  Address  to  the  Teachers  of  Minnesota. 

1.  Some  General  Aspects  of  Public  Control. — 
How,  then,  are  schools  to  be  provided? 
Education  being  of  such  worth,  will  not 
parents  pay  for  the  education  of  their  children, 
townsfolk  and  neighbours  for  the  education 
of  the  orphaned  and  uncared  for? — the  first, 
because  they  see  in  their  children's  education 
incomparably  the  best  form  of  endowment 
policy;  the  second,  from  regard  for  the 
public  weal  or  in  a  spirit  of  philanthropy, 
wisely  looking  for  a  sure  return?  Countries 
have  varied  greatly  in  their  attitude  and 
social  tradition  in  respect  of  education. 
Scottish  tradition,  following  the  enlightened 
policy  of  the  years  1560  and  1696,  through 


ON  EDUCATION  49 

Church  Assembly's  edict  and  national  statute, 
has  long  been  favourable  to  individual  effort. 
Parents  have  striven  with  heroic  self-denial  to 
give  their  sons  an  education,  and  neighbours 
have  reached  out  a  helping  hand  to  'a  lad 
of  parts.'  But  the  necessity  for  universal 
education  never  has  been,  probably  under 
existing  social  conditions  never  could  be, 
anywhere  met  by  such  individual  effort. 

-2.  Some  General  Considerations  affecting 
the  Public  Provision  of  Schools. — Individual 
nations  have  their  own  peculiar  difficulties 
in  carrying  out  this  all-important  branch  of 
the  public  service.  American  education,  for 
instance,  is  far  too  much  under  the  domina- 
tion of  politics,  and  the  resulting  insecurity 
is  doubtless  one  reason  why  men  do  not  take 
up  teaching  in  greater  numbers.  But  America 
knows  nothing  of  the  difficulty  of  adjusting 
national  and  local  administration.  France 
has  made  short  work — perhaps  too  short — 
of  the  religious  controversy  which  still  poses 
amongst  us,  to  the  unspeakable  damage  of 
the  cause  of  education  itself,  as  the  '  education 
question.'  We  have  in  this  aspect  of  English 
education  a  besetting  hindrance  to  anything 
like  a  popular  interest  in  education.  Yet 
only  two  things  need  to  be  adequately  realised 
M.V.E.  c 


50  MODERN  VIEWS 

in  order  that  the  strain  of  the  irrelevant 
*  religious'  controversy  shall  be  considerably 
eased.  One  is  that  diversity,  educationally 
speaking,  is  advantageous.  The  second  is 
that  the  burden  of  denominational  religious 
education  can  never,  in  any  real  theory  of  the 
school  itself,  be  thrown  entirely  upon  the 
school.1  The  churches  and  the  home  life 
count  immensely  in  the  religious  education 
of  the  child. 

From  the  public  point  of  view,  the  more 
important  of  these  mutually  compensating 
considerations  is  that  British  citizenship  is, 
both  by  impulse  and  by  tradition,  tolerant 
of  diversity.  It  is  equally  opposed  to  this 
tolerance  of  diversity  for  denominationalists  to 
have  wished  to  'capture  the  board  schools5 
and  for  an  *  unsectarian '  party  to  aspire  to 
extinguish  the  'non-provided'  or  voluntary 
schools  (or,  if  not  the  schools  themselves, 
their  distinctive  features).  With  respect  to 

1  Canon  Wilson,  formerly  head  master  at  Clifton,  goes 
even  further.  He  says  :  'Let  me  say  that  the  distinctive 
doctrines  of  the  Church  and  many  of  the  sects  are 
utterly  unimportant  at  schools.  .  .  .  No  genuine  school- 
master in  any  rank  can  for  an  instant  digress  from  his 
religious  teaching  into  such  debatable  ground  ;  it  is  one 
of  the  stupendous  and  far-reaching  blunders  that  the 
world  outside  our  profession  makes,  when  they  say  that 
masters  cannot  be  trusted  to  speak  on  religion,  because 
they  would  proselytise.  ...  It  is  to  misconceive  the 
nature  of  the  only  possible  religious  teaching  at  school.' 
— Essays  and  Addresses,  page  61. 


ON  EDUCATION  51 

the  'capture'  just  mentioned,  the  woe  of  the 
once  vanquished  is  still  to  be  traced  in  many 
of  our  public  elementary  day  school  curricula. 
Yet  should  the  policy  of  undenomination- 
alists  be  to  lead  to  the  branding  of  our 
publicly-provided  education  as  'secular,'  the 
hurt  to  the  nation's  life  might  well  be  regarded 
as  no  less  great.  We  have  in  the  decision  to 
abandon  in  future  the  secular  education  debate 
at  the  Trades  Union  Congress  an  indication 
of  the  nation's  weariness  of  the  discussion,  and 
of  the  hopelessness  of  a  fruitful  outcome  from 
its  maintenance.  But,  in  the  meantime, 
what  are  we  losing?  In  the  first  place,  the 
people's  interest  in  education  itself;  and,  in 
the  second  place,  valuable  school  time,  with- 
out the  attainment  of  the  very  ends  to  which 
this  school  time  is  devoted.  Let  us  hear  an 
authoritative  opinion  on  this  second  point. 

The  quotations  are  from  Mr  Holmes's 
book,  What  Is  and  What  Might  Be. 

'The  first  forty  minutes  of  the  morning 
session  are  given,  in  almost  every  elementary 
school,  to  what  is  called  Religious  Instruction. 
The  Scripture  Lesson,  as  it  is  familiarly  called, 
is  supposed  to  make  the  children  of  England 
religious.  The  time  given  to  religious  instruc- 
tion is,  to  make  a  general  statement,  the  only 


52  MODERN  VIEWS 

part  of  the  session  in  which  the  children  are 
being  prepared  for  a  formal  external  examina- 
tion. That  being  so,  it  is  no  matter  for 
wonder  that  many  of  the  glaring  faults  of 
method  and  organisation  which  the  examina- 
tion system  fostered  in  our  elementary  schools 
between  the  years  1862  and  1905  still  find  a 
refuge  in  the  Scripture  lesson.  Overgrouping 
of  classes,  overcrowding  of  schoolrooms,  col- 
lective answering,  collective  repetition,  scrib- 
bling on  slates,  are  still  rampant,  while  religious 
instruction  is  being  given. 

'In  most  elementary  schools  religion  is 
taught  on  an  elaborate  syllabus  which  is 
imposed  on  the  teacher  by  an  external 
authority,  and  which  therefore  tends  to 
destroy  his  freedom  and  his  interest  in  the 
work.  .  .  .  But  what  of  the  child's  emotional 
faculties?  Will  not  the  beauty  of  the  Gospe? 
stories,  will  not  the  sublimity  of  the  Old 
Testament  poetry  make  their  own  appeal 
to  these?  They  might  do  so.  But  what 
chance  have  they?  I  do  not  wish  to  suggest 
that  the  religious  instruction  given  in  our 
elementary  schools  is  always  formal  and 
mechanical.  There  are  teachers  who  can 
break  through  the  toils  of  any  system  and 
give  life  to  their  teaching.  But  the  net 


ON  EDUCATION  53 

result  of  giving  formal  and  mechanical  instruc- 
tion on  the  greatest  of  all  "great  matters"  is 
to  depress  the  spiritual  vitality  of  the  children 
of  England  to  a  point  which  threatens  the 
extinction  of  the  spiritual  life  of  the  nation/ 
These  quotations  are  given  for  the  special 
reason  that  they  express  the  convictions  of 
one  who  has  spent  his  life  in  the  schools  and 
attained  to  the  premier  position  amongst 
the  Government  Inspectors  of  elementary 
schools.  'The  boys  leave  school  hating  the 
Bible ! '  was  a  leading  head  master's  remark 
to  the  writer  many  years  ago.  Other  head 
masters,  again,  say  that  excessive  insistence 
on  religious  instruction  during  their  college 
experience  (this  is  not  universal,  because  of 
differences  in  college  routine,  and  also  of 
differences  in  individual  temperament) 
deadened  their  interest,  and  with  this  influence 
upon  them  they  had  to  commence  their 
work  as  teachers  and  administer  a  similar 
overdose  to  their  scholars.  Surely  we  are 
the  victims  of  a  false  emphasis.  The  teachers 
who  are  able  to  carry  through  the  syllabus 
and  really  use  it  to  religious  ends  would  not, 
one  thinks,  be  the  less  able  to  assume  their 
spiritual  captaincy  over  young  lives  on  an 
amended  scheme.  In  all  publicly  provided 


54  MODERN  VTEWS 

schools — for  diversity  should  be  permitted 
in  non-provided  schools  if  it  is  desired — it 
should  be  possible  to  halve  the  time  given  to 
religious  exercises,  to  abolish  the  examina- 
tion, and  to  allow  the  head  teacher,  who  will 
know  how  to  consult  with  individual  teachers 
in  this  important  part  of  their  work,  to  choose 
the  syllabus  for  his  school,  as  he  does,  with 
even  less  absolute  necessity,  in  other  subjects. 

3.  The  Supervision  of  Schools. — Inspection 
is  not  merely  appended  to  a  national  system 
ef  education;  in  some  form  or  other  it  is 
essential  to  it.  Germany  has  its  system  of 
inspection,  so  has  France;  America,  whose 
educational  system  is  not  national,  substi- 
tutes for  inspection  city  or  state  superin- 
tendency  and  sectional  supervision  of  subjects 
or  grades.  The  American  method,  even 
under  present  conditions,  is,  on  the  whole, 
more  educational  in  tendency  than  our 
British  plan;  and  its  value  will  be  incalculably 
greater  under  the  improved  conditions  which 
must  surely  ere  long  set  school  work  free  from 
party  politics.  But  granted  the  necessity  of 
inspection,  its  methods  and  even  its  aims 
are  far  from  being  finally  determined. 

We  need  to  have  some  notion  of  the  pur- 
poses served  by  school  inspection :  how  it 


ON  EDUCATION  55 

can  help  the  teacher  and  strengthen  the 
work  of  the  school.  For  in  education  the 
living  touch  is  the  teacher's;  and  all  the 
superincumbent  machinery  exists  to  give 
vitality  to  that  touch.  Unfortunately  our 
provision  of  the  people's  schools  did  not 
start  with  that  clearly  in  view.  Education 
was  a  something — almost  a  commodity — to  be 
provided.  Schools  were  the  centres  where 
this  something  was  to  be  had.  It  has  been 
shrewdly  remarked  that  the  full  meaning  and 
possibilities  of  Mr  Forster's  Education  Act 
were  not  realised,  because  there  was  not  in 
the  early  stages  of  its  existence  any  one  to 
,take  over  its  educational  administration  with 
the  same  competency  and  tact  as  had  been 
displayed  by  Mr  Forster  in  carrying  the 
measure  into  law. 

'Till  twenty  years  ago,'  said  a  speaker  at 
the  first  International  Moral  Education  Con- 
gress in  1908,  'the  British  public  (from  the 
President  of  the  Education  Board  down- 
wards) thought  of  education  not  as  the  chief 
national  asset  (as  America  and  Germany 
have  long  regarded  it),  but  as  a  "  bore." ' 
It  was  something  provided  by  legislation  and 
administered  by  a  Government  department, 
the  quantities  of  which  could  be  prescribed 


56  MODERN  VIEWS 

by  code,  and  the  'results'  of  which  were 
measurable  by  quantitative  standards.  *  Write 
"Grant  Factory"  on  three-fourths  of  our 
schools,'  said  an  educator  to  an  Australian 
visitor  in  1890.  These  are  indications  that 
the  work  of  the  inspector  was  for  a  long  time 
carried  on  under  unfavourable  auspices.  The 
inspectors  were  merely  Government  examiners, 
appointed  to  see  that  the  State  got  value  for 
its  money,  before  the  State  itself  or  anybody 
representing  it  had  made  up  its  mind  as  to 
wherein  good  value  would  consist. 

The  abolition  of  the  method  of  individual 
examination  and  payment  by  results  is, 
comparatively  speaking,  so  recent  that  inspec- 
tion is  still  a  somewhat  uncertain  quantity. 
Naturally  some  inspectors  have  been  unable 
to  shake  off  the  outer  show  of  misanthropy 
engendered  by  the  petty  tasks  of  the  earlier 
period;  whilst  others  have  entered  con  amore 
into  the  new  regime,  gladly  exchanging  the 
yard-stick  for  an  opportunity  quickening  to 
mind  and  spirit.  Here  is  already  room 
enough  for  variety.  Add  to  it  the  fact  that 
we  have  not,  as  America  would  long  since 
have  had,  any  special  university  training 
courses  for  inspectors,  and  that  till  lately 
elementary  school  inspectors  have  not  been 


ON  EDUCATION  57 

required  to  have  had  at  the  time  of  appoint- 
ment any  practical  knowledge  of  the  inside 
of  an  elementary  school,  and  apart  from 
other  testimony,  might  it  not  be  expected 
that  inspection  will  be  a  somewhat  uncer- 
tain quantity?  'The  last  inspector  wanted 
it  so  and  thus;  this  inspector  wants  it  thus 
and  so.'  What  is  one  to  say  to  a  teacher — 
to  the  hundreds  of  teachers — making  this 
remark?  That  'it  is  good  experience  to 
keep  trying  different  ways?'  Conscience 
forbid ! 

The  American  superintendents  divide  them- 
selves up,  unconsciously  but  inevitably,  into 
those  who  are  the  business  directors  of  their 
systems  of  schools  and  those  who  are  the 
educational  leaders  of  their  teachers.  The 
latter  are  the  very  life  and  soul  of  the 
American  system.  Some  American  cities 
visited  by  the  writer  in  1900  had  officials  of 
each  type:  the  superintendent,  of  whom  so 
great  an  expert  as  Dr  W.  T.  Harris  said  there 
is  one  thing  that  good  superintendents  can 
do  almost  infallibly,  i.e.  'to  make  good 
teachers  out  of  poor  ones';  and  the  business 
official,  the  clerk  or  secretary,  or  director. 

Could  not  the  English  Board  differentiate 
its  inspectors?  We  need  masters  of  routine 


58  MODERN  VIEWS 

and  inspectors  of  buildings;  and  we  need 
men  of  quickening  touch  and  liberating 
spirit.  The  way  is  now  clear  for  this  higher 
inspectorial  service.  Yet  ask  an  inspector  of 
broad  view  and  humane  instincts  if  he  is 
able  to  realise  this  aim,  by  entering  into  the 
spirit  of  a  school  and  contributing  something 
from  himself  to  its  life, — and  the  answer 
almost  invariably  has  to  be  that  he  has  not 
the  time.  And  this  is  waste  of  public  money. 
It  is  spending  upon  details  of  routine  the  time 
of  a  man  capable,  if  he  had  opportunity  to 
specialise  along  these  lines,  of  giving  guidance 
and  inspiration  to  the  teacher,  and  fresh 
vitality  to  the  contact  between  the  teacher  and 
the  child. 

It  needs  also  to  be  remembered  that,  as 
a  general  thing,  and  for  fairly  obvious  reasons, 
an  inspector's  visit  which  does  not  revitalise 
tends  to  devitalise.  Yet  *  educational 
vitality,'  as  Mr  Sadler  has  well  said,  'is  the 
best  thing  that  public  money  can  buy.'  The 
greatest  inspiration  in  one's  professional  life 
may  have  been,  as  in  the  writer's  own  case, 
the  meeting  day  by  day  for  one  or  two  weeks 
in  the  year  an  inspector  who  knew  how  to 
tone  up  and  to  inspirit.  It  is  not  without 
consciousness  of  the  debt  which  our  national 


ON  EDUCATION  59 

education  owes  to  such,  that  one  expresses 
the  conviction  that  the  influence  of  inspec- 
torial oversight  is  far  too  seldom  a  vitalising 
influence.  Happily  we  are  on  the  eve  of  one 
reform  which  has  been  overdue  for  some 
years.  The  Junior  Inspector,  described  in 
Hansard  as  a  'young  man  fresh  from  the 
university  who  has  only  had  twelve  months* 
experience  in  elementary  schools,  and  that 
not  for  teaching  purposes,  but  to  qualify 
himself  for  the  list  of  applicants  for  Inspector- 
ships,' is  apparently  to  enter  the  ranks  no 
more.  Evidence  given  before  a  special  Royal 
Commission  in  1912  has  secured  by  depart- 
mental action  the  recognition  of  the  claims 
of  men  who  have  had  real  experience  in  the 
type  of  school  to  be  inspected;  and  a  new 
class  of  Assistant  Inspectors  (from  whose 
ranks  H.M.  Inspectors  may  be  appointed) 
is  to  be  created,  teachers  being  eligible  for 
appointment. 

Failing  the  differentiating  suggestion,  there 
is  another  which  has  very  recently  found 
expression,  namely,  that  every  large  centre 
should  have  a  Board  of  Education  Inspectors' 
Office,  where  (a)  the  Government  Inspectors 
of  Education  of  varying  type — Primary, 
Secondary,  and  Technical  --rould  meet 


60  MODERN  VIEWS 

sectionally  to  confer,  and  where  (b)  a  staff  of 
clerks  would  relieve  them  individually  of 
some  at  least  of  the  more  mechanical  work 
of  reporting  and  correspondence;  and  where 
(c)  records  could  be  preserved.  Conferences, 
it  is  suggested,  might  be  held  periodically  at 
such  a  centre  between  H.M.  Inspectors  and 
representatives  of  the  local  authorities,  or 
teachers,  or  employers,  or  work-people  in 
different  trades. 

Before  leaving  the  topic  of  the  supervision 
of  schools  there  is  another  matter  which  calls 
for  mention.  In  different  parts  of  England 
{known  perhaps  in  small  towns  within  a 
radius  of  a  mile  or  so,  in  large  towns  and 
country  places  perhaps  not  known  outside 
at  all)  work  is  being  done  of  unsurpassed  excel- 
lence. Were  there  the  means  of  making  this 
known  easily  and  freely  from  school  to  school 
it  would  be  an  untold  gain  to  British  educa- 
tion. We  should  not  need  to  close  our  eyes 
to  what  other  nations  are  doing;  but  we 
should  gain  immensely  by  a  better  knowledge 
of  the  best  work  done  by  our  own  comrades. 
We  need  an  agency  for  spreading  knowledge 
of  this  kind. 

4.  Note  on  the  Correlation  of  Local  and 
National  Services  and  Control. — Services  in 


ON  EDUCATION  61 

the  shape  of  financial  support  and  super- 
vision, and  of  control  through  code  and  by- 
law, divide  the  duty  of  providing  education 
and  the  responsibility  of  administering  it, 
between  the  central  and  the  local  authorities. 
It  is  partly  an  administrative  and  partly  a 
financial  co-operation.  There  are  advantages 
in  a  certain  amount  of  central  control.  These 
are :  (a)  independence  of  excessive  local 
influences,  political  or  otherwise;  (b)  the 
issuing  of  general  recommendations  and  regu- 
lations from  time  to  time — though  in  this 
matter  the  need  is  sometimes  felt  of  a  steadier 
hand;  (c)  the  possibility  of  guaranteeing 
a  minimum  qualification  of  teachers  and 
a  maximum  assignment  of  scholars  to  teachers 
of  this  or  that  grade;  (d)  the  arranging  for 
the  training  of  teachers  with  greater  facility, 
and  without  reference  to  locality,  social 
prestige,  or  denomination. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  share  of  the  locality 
in  the  administration  secures  advantages 
complementary  to  some  of  these,  (a)  Ade- 
quate local  sentiment  and  influence  can  be 
brought  to  bear;  (b)  local  needs  may  there- 
fore have  consideration;  (c)  supposing,  as 
one  ought  to  be  able  to  do,  that  the  local 
control  is  sufficiently  liberal  and  elastic, 


62  MODERN  VIEWS 

initiative  in  individual  schools  is  possible, 
and  yet  it  has  the  advantage  of  not  being 
left  without  guidance  where  such  is  needed; 
(d)  the  local  authority  is  free  to  avail  itself 
of  the  best  alternatives  left  open  to  it  by 
the  central  authority;  for  example,  in  the 
employment  of  teachers,  it  can  at  any  moment 
decide  to  employ  only  those  professionally 
certificated,  if  not,  indeed,  only  those  who 
are  professionally  trained.  Balancing  the 
combined  advantages  against  whatever 
occasions  may  arise  of  friction,  in  a  right 
combination  of  the  two  forms  of  control, 
central  and  local,  we  have  a  system  which 
avoids  excessive  centralisation  such  as  exists 
in  France,  and  excessive  decentralisation, 
with  its  injurious  openness  to  local  influence 
on  other  than  educational  issues,  such  as 
exists  in  America. 

Financially,  the  correlation  of  local  and 
central  sources  of  supply  depends  partly 
upon  a  just  appreciation  of  the  fact  that  the 
service  is  national  as  well  as  local  in  its 
reference;  partly  upon  questions  of  the 
incidence  of  imperial  taxation  and  local 
rates,  respectively.  But  in  a  general  sense, 
the  whole  system  of  grants,  in  aid  of  services 
which  are  in  the  main  locally  controlled,  has 


ON  EDUCATION  63 

its  dangers,  especially  in  undermining  what, 
for  want  of  a  better  term,  may  be  called  the 
principle  of  locality  and  the  power  of  direct 
popular  control.  From  Sir  Philip  Magnus 
are  quoted  these  words  of  Mr  Lecky :  4 1 
should  not  be  dealing  sincerely  with  you  if 
I  did  not  express  my  own  opinion  that  this 
tendency  carries  with  it  dangers  even  more 
serious  than  those  of  the  opposite  exaggera- 
tion of  a  past  century5  (the  trend  of  opinion 
to  wards  lessening  State  control  at  the  beginning 
of  the  nineteenth  century)  '  dangerous  to  char- 
acter by  accustoming  men  to  the  constant  inter- 
ference of  authority,  and  abridging  in  innumer- 
able ways  the  freedom  of  action  and  choice.' 
But  any  completer  rehabilitation  of  the 
power  of  the  locality  involves  the  whole 
question  of  the  incidence  of  local  taxation, 
a  question  which  cannot  much  longer  be 
shelved.  The  balance  between  government 
and  liberty  is  a  delicate  one.  For  whilst 
direct  local  responsibility  and  a  large  hand 
in  the  immediate  control  give  rise  to  a  study 
of  public  questions,  which  is  the  foundation 
of  a  keen  public  interest,  it  is  also  true  that 
neither  public  efficiency  nor  the  liberty  of 
the  individual  is  attainable  apart  from  State 
organisation. 


64  MODERN   VIEWS 


CHAPTER  V 

ORGANISATION  FOR  TEACHING  :     (2)  THE 
EDUCATIONAL   LADDER 

Parents  of  all  classes  would  certainly 
learn  to  understand  any  system  which 
pursued  ends  at  once  noble  and  practical, 
in  a  definite  and  logical  way,  and  would 
not  be  less  interested  than  French  or  German 
parents  in  the  studies  and  successes  of 
their  sons,  if  they  were  given  a  clear  idea 
of  the  object  which  their  own  boy's  school 
had  set  before  it. — NORWOOD  and  HOPE  in 
Higher  Education  of  Boys  in  England. 

I.  The  Educational  Ladder. — Education 
has  been  fairly  rich  in  its  metaphors;  but 
few  have  been  more  happily  conceived  than 
that  of  the  'educational  ladder.'  Its  inten- 
tion is  clear.  It  suggests  a  direct  and  unbroken 
way  from  the  beginning  to  the  end  of  the 
formal  education  of  school  and  college;  the 
successive  stages  so  connected  that  a  pupil 
who  has  a  distinct  end  in  view,  and  who  has 
attained  to  any  given  point,  need  be  in  no 
uncertainty  as  to  the  next  step  to  take.  It 
has  been  asked,  how  can  a  government  be 


ON  EDUCATION  65 

expected  to  make  provision  for  a  complete 
system  of  education  from  the  crfeche  at  the 
age  of  two  up  to  university  graduation  at 
the  age  of  twenty-two.  But  a  more  difficult 
question  would  be :  How  can  private  enter- 
prise be  expected  to  make  such  provision? 
What  guarantee,  even  likelihood,  is  there 
not  only  that  the  ladder  will  be  wide  enough 
for  all  would-be  climbers,  but  that  the 
separate  ladder-lengths,  representing  succes- 
sive schools,  will  be  securely  roped  together, 
so  as  to  make  a  unity,  a  direct  upward  way, 
which  the  pupil  may  climb  without  fear  of 
stumbling? 

It  will  be  answered,  perhaps,  that  the 
Preparatory  School  and  the  Public  School, 
followed  by  the  Naval  and  Military  Schools 
on  the  one  hand,  or  by  the  University  on  the 
other,  constitute  a  ladder  which  has  been 
set  up  independently  of  State  control.  This 
is  largely  true,  and  Britain  owes  much  to  its 
existence.  Public  school  education  has  pro- 
duced some  great  scholars;  but  its  dis- 
tinguishing service  has  been  to  turn  out  a 
number  of  men  of  practical  ability  and  power 
in  leadership.  This  is  in  keeping  with  British 
tradition  and  tendency.  Practical  impulses 
and  interests  have  always  played  a  large  part 


66  MODERN   VIEWS 

in  the  initiation  and  maintenance  of  educa- 
tional work  amongst  us.  'When  our  fore- 
fathers founded  grammar  schools — that  is  to 
say,  schools  in  which  Latin  was  taught — 
they  were  not  thinking  of  Latin  as  a  teaching 
instrument,  or  of  the  learning  of  Latin  as 
a  moralising  process;  they  were  providing 
for  the  one  indispensable  introduction  to  all 
the  professions  and  all  the  sciences.'  In  this 
sense  the  mediaeval  grammar  school  was  not 
really  different  in  its  aims  from  a  modern 
technical  school.  This  is  the  real  ground- 
work of  English  education.  Its  aim  is  prac- 
tical; its  outlook  is  upon  life.  Partly  for 
this  reason  classical  learning,  which  has 
figured  so  long  as  the  basis  of  our  secondary 
school  curricula  and  which  still  has  its  eager 
champions  amongst  the  heads  of  our  great 
schools,  has  never  been  characteristically 
British.  This  the  writer  has  already  shown 
in  a  short  sketch  of  the  history  of  educational 
theories  in  England.  Spenser  deliberately 
went  back  to  Saxon  speech.  Shakespeare 
makes  sport  of  the  new  type  of  pedant  in 
his  plays.  The  satirist  was  even  earlier  at 
work.  Barclay  writes  in  The  Ship  of  Fools: 

Many  which  say  that  they  theyr  grammar  can 
Are  als  great  folys  as  when  they  first  began. 


ON  EDUCATION  67 

This  was  in  1508.  A  little  later,  students  of 
educational  method,  like  Lord  Bacon  at  the 
beginning  of  the  seventeenth  century  and 
Locke  at  its  close,  announced  a  better  way; 
but  classics  continued  to  form  the  staple  of 
our  secondary  and  university  education  right 
up  to  the  nineteenth  century.  For  a  moment, 
as  Mr  Rashdall  says  in  his  study  of  the 
Universities  of  Europe  in  the  Middle  Ages, 
the  human  world  had  been  'brought  into 
real  and  living  contact  with  a  new  world  of 
thought  and  action  by  the  "New  Learning'*; 
but  ere  long  classical  education  in  turn  be- 
came arid  and  scholastic — as  remote  from 
fruitful  contact  with  realities  as  the  educa- 
tion of  the  Middle  Ages.  What  was  a  revela- 
tion to  one  generation  becomes  an  unintelli- 
gent routine  to  the  next.' 

This  is  rich  soil  in  which  Public  School 
traditions  unsympathetic  to  learning  might 
take  root  and  thrive.  It  is  said  that  the 
parents  of  many  Public  School  boys  set  more 
store  by  prowess  in  games  than  by  industry 
in  school.  Is  not  this  to  be  partly  accounted 
for  by  the  fact  that  father  and  son  often  for 
generations  have  attended  the  schools,  and 
that  family  traditions  may  have  sprung  up 
of  antipathy  to  the  formal  Latin  and  Greek 


68  MODERN  VIEWS 

curriculum  which  too  long  held  almost 
exclusive  sway?  And  this  will  continue 
until  the  value  of  the  wider  range  of  school 
options  which  now  exists  is  adequately 
realised  with  its  twofold  practical  bearing : 
first,  that  it  brings  a  boy  within  the  range 
and  atmosphere  of  diversified  studies  and 
a  variety  of  intellectual  aims,  whatever  his 
own  individual  line  of  study  may  be;  and, 
secondly,  the  invitation  it  offers  him  to  con- 
centrate upon  a  course  of  work  of  his  own 
choosing. 

There  are  serious  defects  also  in  the  Public 
School  ladder  in  the  way  in  which  it  con- 
nects school  with  school  and  school  with 
university.  The  scholarship  system  which 
links  Preparatory  School  with  Public  School 
and  Public  School  with  University  is  a  cause 
still  operating  adversely  on  the  life  of  these 
schools.  The  system  has  undoubted  advan- 
tages in  helping  clever  boys  whose  parents 
could  not  otherwise  have  given  them  the 
education;  but  on  the  other  hand,  so  far  as 
the  actual  studies  are  concerned,  it  leads  to 
a  far  too  early  specialisation  upon  scholar- 
ship subjects. 

The  effect  upon  many  of  the  scholarship 
candidates  themselves  is  disastrous.  Too 


ON  EDUCATION  69 

many  promising  boys  are  said  by  careful 
observers  to  be  c a  spent  force'  at  twenty-one 
years  of  age;  and  even  when  the  results  are 
less  disastrous  than  this,  the  fact  remains, 
that  years  which  Nature  has  signalised  as 
years  of  a  broadening  interest  and  a  strength- 
ening all-round  grip,  are  allowed  to  lose 
their  true  significance  and  value.  In  the 
Preparatory  Schools,  boys  have  to  specialise 
in  order  to  win  scholarships  at  the  Public 
Schools.  And  at  the  Public  Schools,  to  quote 
from  the  classical  address  on  the  subject, 
'children  are  seized  at  an  early  age — at 
thirteen,  fourteen,  fifteen,  or  sixteen — and 
set  down  to  one  subject,  or  two  subjects,  of 
study  ...  as  if  the  boy  was  made  for  the 
subject  and  the  emoluments  attached  to  it, 
and  not  the  subject  and  its  emoluments  for 
the  boy.'  The  able  boy  is  thus  allured  into 
'moving  in  blinkers  for  the  best  years  of 
his  life.'  These  are  the  words  of  the  Master 
of  Trinity,  formerly  for  twenty-five  years 
head  master  of  Harrow,  in  an  address  which 
he  rounded  off  by  describing  such  specialisa- 
tion as  'the  giant  bully  of  all  our  tribe.' 

The  end  in  view  in  this  premature  specialis- 
ing is  the  gaining  of  scholarships  at  the 
Universities.  Tracing  back  the  effeot  of 


70  MODERN  VIEWS 

this  to  the  Preparatory  School,  the  scholar- 
ship ladder  is  like  a  rope  ladder.  It  swings 
from  the  top.  And,  as  every  one  knows, 
under  these  conditions  the  lowest  rungs  are 
the  most  difficult.  The  boys  early  selected 
as  the  promising  climbers  are  penalised,  with 
the  exception,  possibly,  of  the  few  exception- 
ally clever  fellows  to  whom  nothing  comes 
amiss;  and  even  these  lose  the  chance  of 
a  broader  range  of  studies  which  would  in 
most  cases  benefit  them  far  more.  The  head 
master  of  one  of  the  best  Preparatory  Schools 
writes:  'We  are  hampered;  but  so  are  the 
Public  Schools  hampered  themselves  by  the 
older  universities.  Public  opinion  is  slowly 
but  surely  bringing  the  latter  into  tune  with 
modern  ideas  ;  meanwhile  all  we  can  do  is 
to  ensure  a  certain  amount  of  healthy  move- 
ment from  below,  and  make  the  most  of  our 
chances  with  the  boys  by  seeing  that  their 
preparation — for  whatever  we  have  to  prepare 
them — is  sound  and  thorough.  As  a  matter 
of  fact,  the  new  curriculum  lately  adopted 
at  Winchester,  Harrow,  and  Eton  is  a  great 
step  forward;  and  considering  the  present 
state  of  educational  opinion,  I  believe  we 
ought  to  be  grateful  for  such  an  explicit 
setting  forth  of  their  requirements.' 


ON  EDUCATION  71 

With  respect  to  four  of  the  *  charges  most 
commonly  brought  against  the  Public  School 
system'  of  education,  namely,  too  much 
attention  to  games,  the  sacrifice  of  industry 
to  athletics,  expensive  habits  of  living,  and 
over-valuation  of  the  externals  of  refinement, 
it  has  been  said  that  they  are  an  indictment, 
not  of  the  Public  Schools,  but  of  the  parents 
who  send  their  boys  to  them.  One  suspects 
that  this  is  giving  up  the  case  too  easily. 
School  traditions  have  at  least  as  much  to 
do  with  the  life  and  spirit  of  the  school  as 
parental  influence  and  suggestion.  Broadly 
speaking,  the  school  sets  up  its  own  standard. 
And,  self-evidently,  the  parents  of  the  boys 
do  not  fix  the  curriculum,  in  respect  of  which 
there  is  a  strong  tendency  to  vote  hard  work, 
except  for  scholarship  boys,  'bad  form.' 
That  this  should  continue  to  be  the  case  is 
scarcely  surprising  so  long  as  an  excessive 
enthusiasm  on  the  part  of  some  of  the  greatest 
head  masters  for  an  education  which  was 
modern  five  hundred  years  ago  conflicts,  as  to 
a  considerable  extent  it  still  does,  with  the 
keenness  with  which  a  boy  might  otherwise 
avail  himself  of  the  wider  range  of  choice 
and  richer  educational  opportunity  which 
these  schools  now  offer.  For  the  rest,  criticism 


72  MODERN   VIEWS 

of  Public  School  games  is,  for  the  most  part, 
beside  the  mark.  'In  these  islands/  says 
Sir  Godfrey  Lagden  (in  the  Nineteenth  Century, 
March,  1905),  quoting  an  American  writer, 
'sport  is  not  a  dissipation  for  idlers,  it  is 
a  philosophy  of  life.  They  believe  in  it  as 
a  bulwark  against  effeminacy  and  decay.' 
But  keenness  in  games  and  intellectual  power 
are  not  mutually  exclusive.  It  is  when  games 
become  the  only  things  that  the  boys  willingly 
think  about  that  the  excess  begins  to  be  felt. 
So  far  as  the  Public  School  system  goes,  it 
is  becoming  more  and  more  evident  that  the 
foot  of  the  ladder  should  be  the  first  fixed 
point.  The  Universities  themselves  would 
be  more  serviceable  if  they  were  the  crown  of 
a  well-planned  system,  instead  of  being 
a  somewhat  dreamy  height  from  which  educa- 
tional systems  are  prone  to  be  let  down. 
Secondary  schoolmasters  have,  for  some  time, 
felt  the  need  of  freedom  from  the  excessive 
domination  of  education  by  the  University. 
In  the  case  of  their  schools  (which  have  tended 
to  be  isolated,  and  to  fail  to  realise  themselves 
either  in  relation  to  the  demands  of  the 
work-a-day  world,  or  to  their  own  adolescent 
problem,  or  to  each  other)  'the  dead  hand  of 
the  Universities'  has  been  'felt  horribly.' 


ON  EDUCATION  73 

'The  real  vitalising  influences,*  a  leading  head- 
master writes,  cso  far  as  they  reach  us,  come 
from  below/ 

In  the  address  which  has  been  already 
quoted,  the  Master  of  Trinity  leaves  us  in 
no  doubt  as  to  the  direction  in  which  reform 
is  to  be  sought.  Speaking  to  teachers,  he 
said :  *  Say  to  each  of  our  colleges,  one  by 
one,  "Thou  art  the  man."  Bring  home  to 
our  consciences  what  we  are  doing — offering 
year  by  year  to  the  various  schools  such 
bribes  as  are  almost  irresistible,  prizes  of  £60, 
£80,  £100  a  year,  if  only  a  master  will  give 
an  education  which  he  knows  to  be  far  short 
of  the  best;  and  if  any  able  boy  will  consent 
to  move  in  blinkers  for  the  best  years  of  his 
young  life,  fixing  his  eyes  on  the  one  or  two 
subjects  which  will  secure  him  honour  and 
money  and  closing  them  to  almost  all  that  is 
most  human  in  history,  in  biography,  in 
art,  in  poetry,  and  in  fiction,  because  in  the 
examination — such  is  the  current  phrase — 
"it  will  not  pay."  No  doubt,  our  shell  is 
somewhat  callous,  and  our  Triposes  are  im- 
perious, and  for  at  least  a  generation  the 
current  of  superstition  has  run  in  favour  of 
men  who  are  sure  of  a  first-class  in  some  one 
subject  and  have  no  concern  with  any  other. 

M.V.E.  D 


74  MODERN  VIEWS 

But  it  seems  to  me  tolerably  certain  that  we 
must  ere  long  reconsider  our  methods,  and, 
if  the  phrase  may  be  pardoned,  redistribute 
our  bribes.  ...  If  it  were  once  understood 
at  the  schools  that  this  larger  conception  of 
intellectual  desert  was  more  recognised  at 
the  Universities,  is  it  too  much  to  hope  that 
the  schools  too  would  gladly  reconsider  some 
of  their  own  methods  ? ' 

The  remarkable  thing  is  that  the  Universi- 
ties themselves  are  not  satisfied.  The  report 
of  the  British  Association  meetings  held  at 
Portsmouth  in  1911  contains  the  substance 
of  evidence  laid  before  a  committee  of  the 
association,  under  the  chairmanship  of 
Principal  H.  A.  Miers,  on  the  overlapping 
between  secondary  and  higher  education. 
Oxford  reported  that  a  good  deal  of  the  work 
for  the  Preliminary  Examinations  in  science 
is  really  school  work.  The  scholarship  system, 
which  sends  boys  up  with  an  insufficient  know- 
ledge of  the  elementary  parts  of  a  good  many 
subjects,  is  held  partly  responsible  for  this. 
Thus,  some  students  who  are  reading  for 
Final  Honours  are  very  imperfectly  equipped 
in  preliminary  subjects  :  e.g.  mathematics  tot 
engineering  students  and  German  for  science 
students.  At  Cambridge  there  is  the  same 


ON  EDUCATION  75 

complaint  as  at  Oxford  concerning  the  effect 
of  Entrance  Scholarships  and  the  consequent 
omission  of  elementary  training  which  should 
have  been  supplied  at  school.  For  example, 
the  English  of  many  science  students  is  said 
to  be  very  defective. 

If  then,  as  is  quite  probable,  proposals  are 
more  definitely  made  in  the  near  future  for 
an  inquiry  by  Royal  Commission  and  an 
earnest  search  for  remedies,  none  who  know 
the  facts  will  experience  surprise. 

One  promising  sign  is  that  a  large  number 
of  the  Public  Schools  are  willing  that  the  State 
should  intervene.  To  any  action  of  the  State 
there  must  always,  however,  be  one  proviso— 
namely,  that  no  intervention  shall  be  of  such 
a  character  that  it  could,  by  any  mischance, 
restrict  the  freedom  of  a  twentieth  century 
Thring  or  Arnold.  Some  difficulty  would 
arise,  also,  with  regard  to  inspection.  Men 
of  known  and  successful  experience  in  similar 
schools  would  have  to  be  chosen.  (It  has  long 
been  a  grievance  amongst  schoolmasters  that 
it  is  so  rarely  from  their  ranks  that  the 
Government  Inspectors  are  drawn.)  The 
Board  of  Education  began  to  see  this,  when 
arranging  for  the  Inspection  of  Secondary 
Schools  in  1902;  and  have,  ten  years  later, 


76  MODERN  VIEWS 

begun  to  open  the  door  to  distinguished 
elementary  school  teachers.  Clearly,  pro- 
fessional work  should  be  professionally  in- 
spected. And,  further,  seniority  in  school 
service  should  be  a  qualification  for  the 
inspectorate  in  whatever  department. 

2.  The  Publicly  Provided  Educational 
Ladder. — Full  time  attendance  is  required  by 
law  of  all  children  up  to  twelve  years  of  age 
(with  the  exception  that  in  agricultural 
districts  'half-time'  exemption  may  commence 
at  eleven).  This  is  at  present  our  statute 
minimum — the  basis,  therefore,  of  our  educa- 
tional system.  From  the  twelfth  or  thirteenth 
year  the  ways  open  into  the  higher  schools, 
and  the  question  arises  :  How  far  can  the 
State  give  a  child  of  proved  ability  but  of 
poor  parents  a  better  start  in  life  than  his 
parents  can  afford  to  give  him?  Though 
absolute  equality  of  educational  opportunity 
nowhere  exists,  the  State  best  serves  itself 
as  well  as  its  individual  citizens  by  seeing 
that  there  shall  be  an  open  way  to  a  higher 
education  for  all  who  are  really  capable  of 
using  it  well. 

Scholarships  offered  by  municipal  and 
county  authorities  go  some  part  of  the  way 
towards  providing  an  educational  ladder  of 


ON  EDUCATION  77 

this  kind.  The  plan  has  advantages  and 
disadvantages.  It  is  well  to  be  able  to  offer 
a  lift  to  promising  children.  In  some  cases, 
too,  the  looking  forward  to  the  winning  of 
scholarships  by  a  few  tones  up  the  work 
of  the  whole  school.  In  Flintshire,  for  example 
— and  Hawarden  is  for  many  reasons,  both 
historical  and  educational,  worth  a  visit — 
one  learns  that,  as  one  effect  of  the  scholarship 
system,  algebra  finds  its  way  into  the  ele- 
mentary schools  as  an  aid  to  arithmetic, 
that  history  is  better  taught,  that  better 
literature  is  read,  and  that  the  general  work 
of  the  schools  tends  to  a  higher  standard. 
And  the  gain  to  the  scholarship  winners  is 
that  they  are  admitted  to  one  of  the  excellent 
Intermediate  Schools  of  which  Flintshire  has 
five. 

Occasionally,  especially  if  the  method  of 
preparation  has  been  one  of  'cramming/ 
an  unsuitable  child  may  be  passed  up  in  this 
way,  and  the  work  of  the  higher  school  is 
impaired  by  the  presence  of  the  few  that 
are  unfit.  But  it  will  seldom  be  that  the 
most  unfit  are  scholarship  winners.  A  real 
disadvantage,  however,  arises — especially  in 
small  schools — if  the  system  tends  in  any  way 
to  convert  the  primary  school  teacher  into 


78  MODERN  VIEWS 

an  examination  coach.  Either  too  much  is 
asked  from  the  teacher,  or  there  is  risk  of 
non-scholarship  candidates  suffering  some 
neglect.  In  large  schools  there  are  various 
ways  of  avoiding  this.  But,  speaking  gener- 
ally, the  winning  of  scholarships  should 
depend  on  the  ordinary  work  of  the  school. 
Again,  even  if  there  were  no  other  defect  in 
the  system,  it  can  scarcely  be  right  that 
promotion  by  scholarship  should  be  so  strictly 
competitive  that  one  per  cent.,  or  a  fraction 
of  one  per  cent.,  may  divide  winner  and 
loser.  Such  a  margin  may  depend  on  the 
veriest  fluke.  To  meet  this,  do  we  not  need 
a  broader  ladder,  and  one  which  children  of 
equal  merit  and  ability  may  climb  abreast? 
A  further  and  very  real  danger  is  that 
success  may  depend  far  too  much  upon 
verbal  acquisitiveness,  and  on  something 
which  one  more  than  half  regrets  to  disparage, 
school  docility,  rather  than  upon  direct 
capacity  and  practical  power.  In  every 
such  case  a  two-fold  injury  is  done.  The 
child's  mind  has  been  allowed  to  remain  too 
passive,  and  the  State  does  not  get,  as  an 
outcome  of  its  scholarships,  the  highly 
trained  type  of  citizen  and  worker  most 
answering  to  its  needs.  As  an  alert  American 


ON  EDUCATION  79 

teacher  said  to  the  writer,  'The  world  wants 
doers,  not  readers  of  magazines/  A  scholar- 
ship system  which  makes  no  point  of  catching 
the  promising  *  doers'  is  a  sieve  with  a  hole  in 
it.  It  lets  through  some  that  ought  to  be 
encouraged  to  go  forward  along  practical  lines. 
But  these  considerations  are  incidental.  As 
to  the  importance  of  a  well-graded  system  of 
schools,  constituting  an  educational  ladder, 
there  can  be  no  question.  After  steady  work 
in  one  school,  a  child  gains  greatly  by  the 
very  consciousness  of  having  moved  up  into 
a  higher  school.  At  the  moment  in  the  life 
of  the  boy  or  girl  which  we  are  now  considering, 
when  the  nascent  impulses  are  strong  and  the 
outlook  upon  life  is  widening,  the  gain  is  so 
great  that  we  might  well  wish  to  see  it  shared 
in  by  a  far  larger  number.  The  limit  should 
not  be  set  by  an  examination  of  a  formal  and 
literary  kind.  (Of  the  many  suggestions  to 
improve  the  examination  itself,  some  of  the 
best  are  those  which  would  introduce  tests 
of  capacity  rather  than  of  merely  specially- 
primed  memory,  which  would  take  account 
of  the  child's  actual  school  work  as  seen  in 
his  books,  and  which  would  allow  more  weight 
to  conference  between  the  teachers  past  and 
prospective.) 


80  MODERN  VIEWS 

The  elementary  school  is  the  potential 
basis  of  a  system  of  publicly  provided  schools. 
At  present,  above  the  elementary — and  a 
sort  of  finishing  school  to  it — is  the  higher 
elementary  (or,  as  in  London  and  Manchester, 
the  central)  school.  The  aim  of  this  school 
is  to  combine  with  an  extended  general 
education  special  instruction  bearing  on  the 
future  occupations  of  the  scholars,  whether 
boys  or  girls.  The  course  is  planned  for  three 
years,  and  is  for  children  over  twelve,  the  law 
being  that  at  least  twenty-five  per  cent,  of 
the  children  shall  have  free  admission  as 
scholarship  holders.  (The  courses  at  London 
and  Manchester  differ  slightly  from  that 
prescribed  for  higher  elementary  schools. 
They  cover  four  years,  during  the  last  two 
of  which  the  children  have  the  choice  between 
an  industrial  and  a  commercial  section.) 

The  ladder,  so  far  as  day  school  life  is  con- 
cerned, normally  breaks  off  at  the  close  of 
the  higher  elementary  school  period;  the 
pupils,  on  leaving,  commencing  work  in  an 
office  or  workshop,  or  in  some  skilled  handi- 
craft. But  the  advantage  which  the  boy 
or  girl  has  gained  is  almost  incommensurable 
with  the  time,  little  more  than  one  additional 
year,  which  it  has  taken  to  gain  it.  London 


ON  EDUCATION  81 

and  Manchester,  it  is  interesting  to  note, 
offer  leaving  certificates  to  those  attaining 
a  sufficient  standard  of  proficiency,  which 
are  a  valuable  form  of  guarantee  to  employers. 
To  use  a  geological  term,  the  higher  ele- 
mentary school  course  lies  conformably  upon 
the  elementary  course  below.  For  two 
reasons  this  cannot  be  said  of  secondary 
school  courses.  The  first  is  the  absence  of 
any  common  understanding  as  to  what 
constitutes  a  primary  course,  say,  up  to  twelve 
years  of  age.  The  second  is  the  extreme 
variation  in  the  schools  and  the  schooling 
described  as  secondary.  Scholarships  open  the 
way  for  some  to  pass  from  elementary  into 
secondary  schools,  both  municipal  secondary 
schools  and .  grammar  or  high  schools.  A 
clever  ex-elementary  schoolboy  may  win 
a  grammar  school  scholarship  and,  with  the 
aid  of  further  scholarships,  pass  on  to  the 
University.  Something  of  this  kind  is  part 
of  the  very  plan  of  the  Welsh  Intermediate 
School  system.  At  the  Hawarden  Inter- 
mediate School,  for  instance,  to  which  children 
are  freely  admitted  by  scholarships  and  other- 
wise from  the  elementary  school,  one  year's 
record  shows  three  winners  of  high  University 
honours  and  other  distinctions  gained  by  old 


82  MODERN  VIEWS 

scholars;  and  three  University  entrance 
scholarships  and  two  county  scholarships 
tenable  at  a  University  gained  by  boys 
leaving  the  school. 

An  example  of  what  a  comparatively  small, 
and  certainly  not  wealthy,  town  can  accom- 
plish in  the  way  of  providing  an  educational 
ladder  is  furnished  by  Stockport.  In  diagram 
it  may  be  shown  as  follows  :  — 


'  UNIVERSITY 


"  ELEMENTABY 
SCHOOL 

More  scholars  are  found  to  pass  on  to  the 
University  from  the  Municipal  Secondary 
School  than  from  the  High  School  or  Grammar 
School.  The  Scholarship  plan  is  as  follows  : 
Forty  scholarships  are  awarded  annually, 
thirty-five  of  which  at  least  are  offered  to 
children  attending  elementary  schools.  Of 
these,  thirty  are  tenable  at  the  Municipal 
Secondary  School,  and  five  at  each  of  the 
other  schools.  A  maintenance  grant  of  £5 
per  annum  is  made  in  suitable  cases,  and  the 


ON  EDUCATION  83 

scholarships  entitle  their  holders  not  only 
to  free  education  but  to  a  grant  up  to  £l 
per  annum  for  books.  Although  each  of  the 
schools  opens  out  into  the  University,  each 
is  self-complete  in  its  aims  and  curriculum. 
The  fees  vary  from  £3  10s.  per  annum  at  the 
Municipal  School  to  between  £8  and  £11  at 
the  Grammar  School,  and  from  four  to  twelve 
guineas  at  the  High  School. 

The  fact  that  the  Municipal  Secondary 
School  at  this  town  sends  the  greater  number 
of  pupils  to  the  University  has  a  bearing  upon 
a  question  affecting  the  adjustment  of  curri- 
cula, and,  therefore,  upon  the  way  of  the 
young  scholar  up  the  educational  ladder. 
Latin  is  not  taught  at  this  school.  This 
means  that  the  way  to  an  Arts  degree  is 
practically  closed  to  some  who  might  other- 
wise seek  it,  and  whose  whole  taste  and 
ability  lie,  as  is  often  the  case,  rather  in  the 
direction  of  arts  studies  than  of  science. 
May  not  the  way  be  opened  for  a  fuller 
recognition  that  the  twentieth  century  has 
its  own  characteristic  learning,  as  much  in 
the  humanities  (broadly  defined)  as  in  the 
sciences  and  the  branches  of  study  leading 
to  the  professions?  And  may  we  not  come  to 
see  that  whatever  our  predilection  for  the 


84  MODERN  VIEWS 

classics — due,  it  may  be,  to  the  fact  that  no 
other  subject  was  so  systematically  and  hence 
so  educatively  taught  us  in  our  own  school 
days — the  study  of  man  and  his  thought, 
of  modern  tongues,  of  the  earth  and  man's 
activities  upon  it,  afford  ample  scope  for 
university  graduation,  inasmuch  as  philo- 
sophy, languages,  history,  literature,  eco- 
nomics, mathematics,  and  geography  being 
included,  the  avenues  are  thereby  opened 
up  to  an  adequate  culture:  'A  knowledge  of 
ourselves  and  of  the  world.  * 

Such  an  alternative  way  through  the  Arts 
Schools  would  be  a  boon  to  many.  The 
University  of  Liverpool  already  allows 
students  in  training  to  be  teachers  to  take 
an  Arts  Degree  without  Latin.  The  question, 
however,  is  a  perfectly  general  one.  Ought 
the  fact  that  doors  into  the  slowly  won 
delights  of  an  ancient  literature,  as  read  in 
the  language  of  its  own  writers,  have  not 
been  opened,  to  be  a  lasting  reason  why 
a  youth  should  not  pass  through  other  door- 
ways to  a  humanising  contact  with  the 
thoughts  and  the  language  of  men  of  modern 
times? 


ON  EDUCATION  85 

CHAPTER  VI 

MODERN   VIEWS   ON   SCHOOL   CURRICULA 

All  are  to  be  taught.  And  knowledge  is 
infinite.  And  life  is  short.  And  average 
brains  are  weak. 

How  can  this  be  dealt  with?  This  is  our 
problem. — TURING  :  Address  to  the  Teachers 
of  Minnesota. 

THE  main  question  affecting  the  grading  of 
schools  is  the  grading  of  curricula.  What  is 
to  be  taught,  and  why?  And  at  what  stage 
in  the  learner's  school  (or  school  and  college) 
life?  The  more  it  becomes  impossible  to 
treat  of  education  in  three  watertight  com- 
partments as  elementary,  secondary,  higher, 
and  the  more  the  three  grades  become  in 
fact  'parts  of  that  organic  whole  which  it 
is  essential  for  us  to  form,'  the  closer  we  come 
to  the  study  of  what  is  to  be  taught  at  any 
given  stage,  and  of  the  way  in  which  the  teach- 
ing at  successive  stages  is  to  be  made  to  form 
a  unity.  There  is  abundant  evidence  of  the 
tendency  to  unify  our  educational  system. 
This  has  not  taken  place  without  much 
probing  of  questions  affecting  studies.  The 


36  MODERN  VIEWS 

constant  debating  of  the  question  of  com- 
pulsory Greek  at  Oxford  is  but  one  symptom 
of  the  emergence  of  a  problem  affecting 
education  from  end  to  end. 

We  are,  indeed,  very  far  from  having  it 
settled  in  any  single  nation,  not  to  say  when 
we  compare  nation  with  nation,  what  'lessons' 
and  what  activities  should  be  devised  for 
very  little  children.  The  Infant  School  has 
come  to  stay  :  at  least  until  those  Utopian 
days  when  all  mothers  will  have  the  leisure, 
the  equipment,  and  the  grace  of  heart  to 
teach,  or,  without  conscious  teaching,  to 
guide  their  own  children  in  their  early  days. 
No  education  can  ever  surpass  such  education 
in  infancy;  but  as  things  are,  we  have  to 
replace  the  *  mother  school5  by  the  infant 
school.  Probably,  as  no  one  knows  except  in 
vague  outline  what  the  education  of  the 
infant  school  should  be,  our  key-note  should 
be  the  making  of  the  little  child's  experience, 
as  much  as  may  be,  to  resemble  what  it  would 
be  in  an  ideal  home. 

To  glance  for  a  moment  at  this  governing 
principle  of  infant  training,  it  is  of  interest 
so  see  that  it  is  the  most  striking  feature  in 
the  work  of  three  of  the  greatest  pioneers — 
Pestalozzi,  Froebel,  Montessori.  (It  may  seem 


ON  EDUCATION  87 

early  to  place  the  third  name  by  the  side  of 
two  that  have  increased  in  honour  with  the 
closing  decades  of  the  last  century  and  the 
first  of  this;  but  alike  in  its  spirit,  in  its 
origin  as  an  offshoot  from  earlier  well- 
considered  educational  systems,  in  the  scien- 
tific study  and  care  in  experiment  which 
have  already  been  given  to  it,  and  in  the 
way  in  which  it  appeals  to  the  higher  indi- 
vidualism and  spiritual  impulses  of  the  day, 
the  Montessori  method  brings  with  it  the 
promise  of  a  far-reaching  and  quickening 
influence.)  Pestalozzi  lived  as  father,  friend, 
physician,  with  the  neglected  children  and 
the  orphans  committed  to  his  care.  The 
farm,  the  lessons,  the  affection  he  gave,  and 
the  aspirations  which  animated  him,  were 
but  the  incidents  of  a  generous,  educative 
*  home '-life  on  a  large  scale.  It  was  Pesta- 
lozzi's  disciple,  Froebel,  who  said,  'Come, 
let  us  live  for  our  children'  The  home  failing — 
though  it  is,  in  Froebel's  view,  Nature's 
garden  of  childhood  (Kindergarten) — the  school 
may  bear  the  name,  and  become  the  children's 
garden.  Dr  Maria  Montessori's  schools  in 
Italy  are  called  'children's  houses.'  Here, 
too,  the  spirit  of  the  true  home  life  is  the 
spirit  of  the  school.  Her  first  regard  is  for 


88  MODERN  VIEWS 

'the  life  that  is  growing  within  these 
children/ 

It  is  not,  however,  to  infant  education,  at 
school  or  in  the  home,  that  we  look  for  the 
beginnings  of  a  systematised  curriculum. 
Invaluable  foundations  may  be  laid — inefface- 
able, they  are  doomed  for  better  or  for  worse 
to  be — in  the  first  six  years  of  life.  Life,  even 
then,  begins  to  branch  out  in  all  directions; 
and  according  to  opportunity  and  encourage- 
ment these  years  may  yield  an  enriching 
experience.  But  it  is  to  the  years  of  primary 
education,  say,  from  the  ages  of  seven  to 
twelve,  that  we  must  look  for  the  beginnings 
of  a  formal  curriculum. 

1.  Is  it  possible  to  Determine  a  Primary 
Education  of  Uniform  Reference  for  all 
Children  ? — This  question  has  a  bearing  upon 
education  in  all  its  forms,  and  in  all  countries. 
And  many  have  raised  it.  Granted,  for 
example,  that  early  specialisation  is  educa- 
tionally inadvisable  and  wrong  in  itself,  the 
question  of  what  should  be  the  character  of 
a  primary  or  foundational  education  in  the 
Preparatory  Schools  comes  up  for  discussion 
in  a  strikingly  interesting  form.  Stated  in 
the  broadest  way,  the  problem  is  that  of 
a  curriculum  of  uniform  reference :  not 


ON  EDUCATION  89 

necessarily  a  uniform  education.  America, 
as  is  well  known,  does  not  hesitate  to  educate 
the  son  of  a  seamstress  and  the  son  of  a 
millionaire  side  by  side  in  the  primary  school; 
and,  if  the  former  boy  is  able  to  continue  his 
education,  in  the  High  School  also.  It  is 
a  far  simpler  matter  that  is  to  be  discussed 
here.  Allowing  for  great  differences  of 
emphasis  at  the  hands  of  different  teachers, 
seme  making  more  of  one  subject  or  group 
of  subjects,  and  some  of  another;  allowing, 
too,  for  those  who  would  view  the  range  of 
reference  in  any  commonly  recognised  founda- 
tional  course  as  a  minimum,  and  would  wish 
to  exceed  it,  would  it  not  be  advantageous 
to  consider,  as  many  are  inviting  us  to  do, 
what  really  are  the  elements  of  a  primary  or 
foundational  education? 

The  three  R's  must  give  place.  Formally 
treated,  as  they  too  often  have  been,  they 
are  not  the  elements  of  an  education  at  all, 
but  merely  instruments  which  have  not 
seldom  been  put  to  ill  use  in  later  life.  Merely 
to  be  able  to  read,  for  example,  is  not  to  be 
educated.  Apart  from  a  taste  for  reading 
what  is  worthy  and  stimulating,  real  educa- 
tion can  hardly  be  said  to  have  made  a 
beginning.  The  bare  acquisition  of  the  three 


90  MODERN  VIEWS 

R's,  which  is  too  often  insisted  upon,  is 
comparable  to  the  starving  bird's  possession 
within  its  stomach  of  bits  of  grit  and  sand 
swallowed  to  aid  in  digestion,  but  with  no 
food  for  the  instruments  of  digestion  to  work 
upon. 

In  suggesting  a  primary  or  foundational 
education  of  uniform  reference,  there  need 
be  absolutely  no  notion  of  a  Procrustean  bed. 
Attainments  cannot  be  fixed;  even  the 
educational  aim  may  differ  from  school  to 
school  and  from  teacher  to  teacher.  Besides 
which,  some  children  will  have  enjoyed  all 
kinds  of  additional  opportunity,  at  home  or 
through  the  influences  of  home,  or  by  means 
of  school  hobbies  and  school  associations; 
ethers,  unfortunately,  will  have  suffered  from 
all  kinds  of  defect  of  opportunity.  The 
common  school  we  shall,  probably,  never 
have.  But  it  seems  more  than  possible  to 
discover  what  fields  of  reference  should  be 
included  in  every  young  child's  education. 

The  most  definite  educational  discovery  of 
recent  years  has  been  that  of  the  value  to  be 
assigned  to  the  instinctive  life  of  childhood 
and  youth.  The  years  of  primary  schooling 
are  those  during  which  inherited  powers  and 
nascent  tendencies  unfold  most  rapidly.  These 


ON  EDUCATION  91 

foundations  of  life-power  are  generic.  On 
the  one  hand,  therefore,  to  specialise  prema- 
turely, is  to  nip  nascent  tendency  in  the  bud. 
For  it  is  less  upon  this  or  that  specific  capacity 
than  upon  balanced  power  and  a  complete 
human  development  that  accomplishment 
depends;  even  genius  accomplishing  most 
when  it  is  the  apex  of  a  broad-based  pyramid. 
Shakespeare,  for  instance,  was  man  first, 
poet  second;  hence  he  is  supreme  as  poet. 
(Incidentally  this  is  one  of  the  justifications 
of  the  school;  independently  even  of  the 
class-room  work,  its  round  of  life  appeals 
to  the  boy  from  so  many  sides).  And  on  the 
other  hand,  not  to  give  each  child,  even  the 
seemingly  most  backward,  the  fullest  all-round 
chance  to  reveal  what  powers  he  has,  is  also 
a  loss,  both  to  him  and  to  ourselves. 

2.  Considerations  which  must  Govern  the 
Choice  of  Primary  School  Studies. — There  are 
two  directions  in  which  to  look  for  guidance 
in  our  choice  of  school  activities  and  school 
lessons.  We  may  consider  either  the  nature 
and  quality  of  the  mental  powers  we  wish  to 
awaken  and  to  develop  in  the  scholar;  or  we 
may  make  a  general  survey  of  his  life  surround- 
ings, and  of  the  environment  in  which  oppor- 
tunities of  success  and  service  await  him. 


92  MODERN  VIEWS 

Neither  of  these  would  afford  us  sufficient 
guidance  in  itself.  If  we  think  only  of  exer- 
cising the  boy's  mind  on  Mr  Dooley's  prin- 
ciple: *I  don't  care  what  ye  larn  thim,  so 
long  as  'tis  onpleasant  to  thim.  'Tis  thrainin 
they  need,'  we  get  back  to  formal  ideas  of 
school  tasks,  against  which  the  real  boy  as 
opposed  to  the  schoolboy  has  always  been 
more  or  less  in  revolt. 

'Mental  gymnastics,'  pure  and  simple,  is 
a  barren  plea.  The  boy  may  as  well  exercise 
his  powers  on  something  that  matters  to 
himself  and  to  the  world  as  on  something 
that  does  not.  Climbing  a  ladder  is  better 
exercise  than  the  treadmill.  On  the  other 
hand,  a  curriculum  derived  purely  from  a 
survey  of  the  world  and  its  activities,  such 
as  we  see  at  times  proposed,  and  find  to  some 
extent  existing  in  response  to  the  demand 
that  the  boy's  schooling  shall  be  practical, 
will  always  tend  to  formalism  of  another  kind. 
Life  appeals  to  the  boy  of  course — actual, 
practical  life.  This  shows  itself  in  a  hundred 
ways  in  the  activities  of  the  ordinary  healthy 
child.  But  if  we  plan  his  school  work  from 
this  standpoint  purely,  we  shall  once  more 
make  his  school  life  artificial.  We  shall  teach 
him  arithmetic  when  he  ought  to  be  playing 


ON  EDUCATION  93 

at  shop ;  reading,  when  he  ought  really  to  be 
learning  to  talk;  and  writing  when  he  would 
be  better  expressing  himself  in  picture- 
language,  traced  in  sand  or  drawn  with 
coloured  chalks.  Yet  each  of  the  guiding 
considerations  spoken  of — the  child's  apti- 
tudes and  the  world's  work  for  him — points 
out  a  way.  In  combination  they  point  out 
the  true  way.  The  activities  of  the  real  boy 
and  his  preparation  for  the  activities  of  the 
real  world  are  not  in  antagonism  but  in 
agreement.  The  more  the  schoolboy  is 
the  real  boy,  the  better  for  both.  For  is  it 
not  a  matter  of  common  observation  that 
when  school- work  becomes  too  formal,  whether 
as  a  gymnastic,  or  as  a  supposed  equipment 
for  life,  the  boy  who  has  rebelled  most  success- 
fully against  it  does  better  in  the  world  than 
his  more  docile  classmates? 

In  the  quest  for  the  elements  of  a  founda- 
tional  education  we  shall  be  on  the  surest 
ground  if  we  make  the  child's  interests  our 
point  of  departure.  We  know  at  once  that 
he  is  interested  in  the  material  world;  we 
know  also  that  he  is  interested  in  people, 
both  in  his  behaviour  towards  them  and  in 
their  behaviour  towards  him.  Hence,  follow- 
ing first  the  lead  of  the  child's  interest  in  the 


94  MODERN  VIEWS 

material  world,  (1)  direct  observations  of 
nature  and  the  varied  outlook  of  elementary 
science  cannot  fail  to  appeal  to  him;  nor  (2) 
can  actual  exercise  in  dealing  with  quantities 
and  with  numbers,  mensuration,  weights  and 
measures,  money — i.e.  practical  and  theo- 
retical arithmetic.  The  boy  likes  to  deal 
with  real  quantities  and  actual  processes. 
(3)  The  same  is  true  of  practical  geometry, 
and  the  elements  of  physics  and  mechanics. 
'A  boy  likes  to  deal  with  forces;  he  has  the 
feeling,  when  I  am  a  man  I  want  to  do  this.' 
Here,  clearly,  are  three  essential  directions 
which  a  foundational  education  must  take. 
Then,  there  are  school  lessons  and  activities 
which  partly  connect  the  child  with  the  world 
and  its  contents,  partly  with  people  and  their 
life  in  the  world.  Such  are  (4)  geography, 
a  knowledge  of  the  more  striking  features  of 
the  world,  and  of  the  industry  (partly,  too, 
of  the  adventure)  of  the  peoples  who  live  in 
it;  (5)  handicraft  work,  giving  knowledge 
and  power  in  the  use  of  hand  tools  which 
man  has  invented,  and  power  to  use  the 
materials  which  the  world  provides  ;  (6) 
drawing,  whether  for  expression  (the  basis  of 
art),  for  planning  (the  basis  of  craftsmanship), 
or  for  more  exact  study  (one  of  the  bases  of 


ON  EDUCATION  95 

science).    These,  again,  are  well-defined  direc- 
tions in  which  the  child  waits  to  be  led. 

The  other  group  of  interests  which  are 
vital  to  the  child  will  have  to  do  with  his  life 
as  a  human  being,  who  comes  to  his  compre- 
hension of  life  through  communication  and 
sympathy  with  other  human  beings.  Included 
in  these  are  (7)  language — use  in  speech  and 
writing  of  the  mother-tongue;  (8)  reading 
and  singing — knowing  good  books,  good  songs, 
good  poems,  and  caring  for  their  human 
meanings;  (9)  the  story  of  one's  own  people, 
and  stories  of  great  men  and  great  deeds  of 
other  nations,  ancient  and  modern. 

Not  one  of  these  nine  groups  fails  to 
correspond  with  foundational  impulses  and 
interests  in  the  child's  mind.  Nor  is  there 
one  which,  if  we  had  adopted  the  other  alter- 
native and  commenced  by  thinking  of  the 
world  and  of  the  child's  future  activity  in 
it,  we  would  wish  to  omit. 

But  where  are  the  three  R's?  For  they 
must  be  included  as  instruments,  if  not  as 
ends.  They  are  there  already;  reading,  in 
the  only  form  in  which  the  child,  or  any  of  us, 
cares  anything  about  it — i.e.  reading  some- 
thing that  has  appeal  in  it;  and  in  addition, 
and  as  a  means  to  this  end,  practice  in  reading 


90  MODERN  VIEWS 

and  in  articulation — the  latter  a  valuable  by- 
product of  the  phonic  method.  Arithmetic — 
as  teachers  and  many  writers  and  publishers 
of  school  books  are  coming  to  see — not  in 
the  form  of  page  after  page  of  'sums' — '5864 
multiplied  by  19'  and  the  like — but  arith- 
metic with  some  meaning  in  it,  instancing 
to  the  boy  5864  of  what?  and  why  he  needs 
to  multiply  by  19 — in  a  word,  a  conscious 
dealing  with  quantities  and  numbers,  an 
affair  of  real  transactions  and  actual  situa- 
tions ;  in  addition,  the  learning  of  tables 
and  cultivation  of  accuracy  as  a  (largely 
conscious)  means  to  practical  ends.  Writing, 
requiring  practice  certainly,  but  not  a  piecing 
together  of  letters  and  of  strokes  and  pot- 
hooks, but  symbolising  something  from  the 
very  outset,  if  only  as  'a'  for  apple;  and  as 
soon  as  possible  writing  connectedly  as  a 
means  of  self-expression  or  of  keeping  records. 
In  such  a  provisional  showing  of  the 
possible  range  of  reference  of  a  primary 
curriculum,  there  may  be  things  omitted 
which  one  or  another  would  wish  to  introduce. 
But  is  there  any  one  line  of  reference  which 
could  with  justice  be  neglected?  And  what- 
ever reasons  may  be  urged,  say,  for  the 
inclusion  of  a  foreign  language,  is  it  not.  at 


ON  EDUCATION  97 

any  rate,  arguable,  that  the  ground  that 
might  profitably  be  covered  by  the  time  a 
child  is  twelve  years  of  age  in  the  subjects 
named  affords  a  broad  and  generous  founda- 
tion for  future  learning?  'If  a  boy  wants  to 
do  anything  at  classics,  he  must  begin  at  ten; 
before,  if  possible.'  Really,  this  does  not 
follow  from  anything  we  know  about  boys 
at  this  tender  age.  The  counter-question  is  : 
Is  the  boy  at  ten  really  doing  anything  at 
classics?  Is  he  not  just  fagging  at  words, 
and  paradigms,  and  rules  and  exceptions, 
acquiring  a  mechanical  adjustment  to  the 
whole  thing?  'There  is  no  reason  why  a 
boy  should  not  begin  French  between  ten 
and  eleven.'  As  it  is  a  living  language,  and 
the  French  are  near  neighbours,  and  the 
language  is  analytical,  and  in  structure  very 
much  like  our  own,  there  is  no  good  reason. 
Indeed,  in  schools — and  they  are,  one  fears, 
the  majority — where  not  much  that  is  of 
value  comes  from  the  teaching  of  English 
Grammar,  there  may  be  advantage  from  the 
side  of  sheer  grammar  teaching  and  of  initia- 
tion into  the  principles  of  language  in  com- 
mencing French  at  this  age.  Grammar  is 
one  of  the  most  educative  of  school  studies; 
nevertheless  it  must  be  admitted  that  it  is 
M.V.E.  E 


98  MODERN   VIEWS 

quite  commonly  the  least  fruitful  and  the 
worst  taught.  If  the  art  of  exact  expression, 
and  the  linguistic  principles  on  which  it 
depends,  are  to  be  obtained  in  any  other  way, 
the  introduction  of  such  other  way  will 
doubtless  be  in  many  cases  an  advantage. 
But  a  primary  course  would  scarcely  include 
a  foreign  language  as  an  essential. 

The  items  suggested  for  inclusion  are  meant 
to  stand  less  as  separate  subjects  than  as 
directions  which  the  school  work  must  tend 
to  follow.  They  are  put  down  item  by  item 
for  the  sake  of  clearness.  Evidently,  reading 
— though  avoiding  the  sacrilege  of  reducing 
a  page  of  literature  to  a  page  of  exercises — 
may  be  the  basis  of  much  of  the  real  grammar 
that  is  learnt,  the  basis  of  even  more  of  the 
composition.  Much  of  the  history  that  is 
learnt  at  this  stage,  especially  of  the  great 
deeds  of  men  and  women  of  our  own  and  other 
nations,  will  be  incidental  to  or  actually 
included  in  the  reading.  But  with  all  regard 
for  the  enterprise  of  the  publishers  of  school- 
books,  let  the  reading  at  the  earliest  and  at 
every  moment  possible  be  from  living  books, 
and  not  from  manufactured  school  readers, 
improved  though  they  have  been  of  late. 
I  believe  it  is  true  to  say  that  in  all  W.  T. 


ON  EDUCATION  99 

Stead's  Books  for  the  Bairns,  though  there 
are  frequently  selections  and  condensation, 
there  is  none  of  this  chip-chop.  Books  and 
literature  are  to  be  had.  The  American 
Supplementary  lists  for  each  grade  show 
this.  Moreover,  American  school  experience 
shows — for  they  make  much  of  literature — 
that  the  children  prefer  the  best. 

In  interpreting  what  has  been  said,  one 
needs  to  add  that  the  effect  of  any  course  of 
work  in  school  will  depend  not  so  much  upon 
the  items  included  in  it  as  upon  the  educational 
aim  and  procedure  underlying  it.  The  funda- 
mental differences  amongst  educators  lie 
in  their  views  concerning  the  real  nature  of 
knowledge.  Is  it  cargo  or  driving-power? 
This  important  question  still  remains  to 
a  considerable  extent  a  matter  of  private 
interpretation.  There  are  those  who  regard 
the  child's  vital  experience  as  yielding  him 
what  he  knows  :  *  lives,  not  lessons,  are  dealt 
with.'  Thus  knowledge  becomes  a  driving 
power;  for  the  whole  life  of  the  child  and  the 
life-power  of  the  child  tend  to  be  bound  up 
with  his  pursuit  of  it.  On  the  other  side  are 
those  whose  practice  betrays  the  belief  that 
knowledge  is  something  to  be  'carried  in  the 
mind' — a  sort  of  load  or  cargo.  Tested  by 


100  MODERN   VIEWS 

the  old  adage:  Knowledge  is  power,  this  idea 
of  'knowledge-lumps/  and  of  'subjects' 
treated  each  as  an  end  in  itself,  entirely 
fails.  Knowledge  in  lumps  is  liable,  if  not 
actually  to  get  in  the  way,  at  any  rate  to 
delay  the  starting  of  the  machinery;  and 
children  of  strong  practical  impulses  seldom 
fail  to  show  us  how  little  it  is  to  their  taste. 

Clearly  a  curriculum  is  far  less  a  question 
of  items  than  of  interpretation.  Aim  and 
method — the  why  and  the  how  of  education 
as  each  school  interprets  them — determine 
what  a  curriculum  really  is. 

Some  valuable  hints  will  be  found  in 
Professor  Findlay's  last  book,  The  School. 
The  curriculum,  it  is  urged,  should  turn  upon 
the  child's  increasing  range  of  interests,  and 
his  power  to  reach  out  further  and  further 
in  the  understanding  and  mastery  of  his  en- 
vironment. A  wholly  fresh  note  is  struck  in 
a  sentence  like  the  following :  *  Throughout 
the  years  from  seven  and  eight  until  the 
approach  of  adolescence  at  thirteen,  we  can 
observe  a  succession  of  fields  of  activity  from 
the  house  indoors  to  the  garden  and  wood- 
lands out  of  doors.'  The  school  accordingly 
will  find  scope  for  this,  and  the  day  be  divided 
between  purposeful  workshop  (and  similar) 


ON  EDUCATION  101 

occupations;  leisure  (cultural)  employments — 
music  and  the  story  in  drama  or  in  other  forms 
of  prose  and  poetry;  and  technical  exercises — 
formal  work  in  the  three  R's,  physical  exer- 
cise, and  drawing. 

The  task  of  the  school  is  to  interpret  and 
to  widen  out  the  child's  world.  It  interprets 
some  of  the  world's  puzzles,  intellectualising 
rather  than  dispelling  their  mystery;  finds 
fresh  scope  for  the  child's  affections,  as  well 
as  exercise  for  his  mind  and  development 
for  his  body.  It  is  a  place  where  the  boy 
lives,  and  learns  to  live  by  living.  That  is 
the  school  to  the  opening  of  whose  doors  all 
the  higher  and  humaner  impulses  of  mankind 
are  tending;  the  school  to  which  'the  whole 
child  comes.'  At  present,  as  all  know,  there 
is  another  side  to  school.  There  are  past  con- 
ditions from  which  we  are  steadily  drawing 
away.  There  are  also  some  retarding  con- 
ditions of  the  present,  so  difficult  in  many  of 
their  phases  to  deal  with,  yet  so  sure  in  the 
long  run  to  be  overcome. 

3.  The  Secondary  School  Curriculum. — 
It  almost  follows  that  the  Secondary  School 
must  sustain  what  the  Primary  School  has 
begun.  Which  of  the  foundational  interests 
and  activities  can  we  afford  to  drop — at 


102  MODERN    VIEWS 

twelve,  at  fourteen?  The  educational  aim 
will  still  be,  in  Matthew  Arnold's  words,  to 
enable  the  scholar  'to  know  himself  and  the 
world/  Avoiding  the  ambiguity,  amounting 
almost  to  loss  of  definite  meaning,  of  the 
term  'secondary'  when  applied  to  education, 
we  may  here  think  of  it  as  an  education 
continued  from  twelve  years  of  age  and  not 
ceasing  earlier  than  sixteen.  To  quote  once 
more  the  author  of  Croesiis  Minor,  and  his 
plea  for  a  broad  education,  if  only  for  the 
sake  of  the  average  boy :  '  The  average  is 
the  great  question,  and  the  largest  question. 
Put  before  him  all  the  accomplishments  you 
can;  throw  light  into  his  mind  by  opening 
whatever  chinks  are  possible;  teach  him  to 
respect  himself  and  his  own  capacity/ 

Mr  A.  C.  Benson,  in  an  article  in  the  English 
Review  for  October,  1912,  deplores  that  the 
head  master  of  one  of  our  greatest  secondary 
schools  should  speak  of  modern  subjects  as 
'invading  the  sanctuary'  of  the  school. 
Having  himself  been  a  master  at  Eton  and 
taught  classics  for  nearly  twenty  years,  he  is 
'in  no  sense  an  opponent  of  the  classics  for 
the  right  boys.'  'But  must  boys/  he  asks, 
'whose  staple  nourishment  is  to  be  the 
classics,  remain  in  a  sort  of  mediaeval  dream, 


ON  EDUCATION  103 

blissfully  unconscious  of  the  opening  thought 
of  the  world,  its  visions,  its  hopes,  its  ideas, 
its  problems?  And  on  the  other  hand  is 
culture  really  not  attainable  on  modern  lines? 
Must  the  Universities  continue  to  hedge 
themselves  round  by  a  fence  of  Latin  and 
Greek?'  What,  then,  ought  the  curriculum 
of  a  great  secondary  school  to  accomplish 
for  its  boys?  'They  ought  to  see,'  says  Mr 
Benson,  'that  every  boy  who  leaves  a  public 
school  writes  a  good  legible  hand,  can  spell 
satisfactorily,  can  express  himself  clearly  in 
English,  can  read  French  easily  and  write 
simple  French  correctly,  can  calculate  in 
arithmetic  rapidly  and  accurately,  and  has 
a  general  outline  knowledge  of  European 
history,  modern  geography,  and  popular 
science.  I  am  not  saying  that  the  duty  of 
public  schools  ends  there;  but  it  certainly 
begins  there.  Even  for  an  average  boy  this 
curriculum  would  leave  a  considerable  margin 
of  time  in  which  his  special  tastes  and  apti- 
tudes could  be  developed/  Here  is,  prac- 
tically, an  extension  of  the  primary  curriculum 
just  advocated  into  secondary  education; 
and  surely  the  aim  should  not  be  less  than  this , 
*A  boy  who  has  these  accomplishments/  Mr 
Benson  adds,  'would  be  in  a  position  to  earn 


104  MODERN  VIEWS 

his  living,  and  it  would  not  require  anything 
like  all  the  working  hours  for  the  eight  or 
nine  years  of  school  life  to  give  him  this  range 
of  efficiency.' 

The  Secondary  Day  Schools  need  to  meet 
a  similar  demand.  As  far  back  as  May,  1889, 
Mr  Glazebrook,  at  that  time  head  master 
of  the  Manchester  Grammar  School,  men- 
tioned sixteen  as  the  age  at  which  a  general 
education  might  break  off  and  some  amount 
of  specialisation  begin.  'The  great  mass  of 
boys  attending  Secondary  Day  Schools  who 
leave  at  sixteen  to  go  into  business  require  an 
education  liberal,  but  on  a  moderate  scale — 
not  the  foundation  for  an  intellectual  mansion 
which  is  never  to  be  built,  but  a  serviceable 
cottage  that  will  keep  out  the  rain.'  It  is 
only  for  the  boys  who  stay  on  at  school  after 
this  age  that  the  question  of  specialisation 
arises.  But  to  give  these  boys  classics  alone, 
*  stunts  the  mind  and  spoils  the  temper';  to 
let  them  divide  their  time  impartially  among 
four  languages,  history,  two  sciences,  and 
mathematics,  without  any  regard  for  indi- 
vidual taste  or  capacity,  'distracts  and  con- 
fuses';  to  let  each  drop  everything  but  his 
special  study  'results  in  terrible  narrowness.' 
The  true  method  for  these  older  boys, 


ON  EDUCATION  105 

Mr  Glazebrook  thought,  would  be  found  by 
combining  the  last  two  plans;  little  more 
than  half  the  school  hours  being  devoted  to 
the  special  subject,  and  the  rest  devoted  to 
general  or  supplementary  studies.  And  again 
uttering  the  plea  for  adequate  all-round  work  : 
'  Surely  it  is  no  exaggeration  to  say  that  a  man 
cannot  be  called  educated  unless  he  has  a 
moderate  acquaintance  with  the  literature  of 
his  own  country,  and  at  least  one  foreign 
language,  and  has  a  little  real  knowledge  of 
history,  of  elementary  mathematics,  and  of 
some  one  science.  To  withdraw  any  one  of 
these  branches  from  his  education  is  to  lop 
a  limb  from  his  mind* 


106  MODERN  VIEWS 

CHAPTER  VII 

THE    EFFICIENCY-VALUE    OF    SCHOOL    STUDIES 

Any  education  which  fails  to  make  poor 
men  or  rich  men  efficient  in  action  is  an 
unsatisfactory  education — one  which  needs 
to  be  reformed,  not  only  for  the  sake  of  its 
results,  but  because  the  studies  which 
produce  such  results  cannot  themselves 
be  sincere  and  wholesome. — FREDERICK 
DENISON  MAURICE,  in  Learning  and  Working. 

THE  notion  of  the  efficiency-value  of  school 
work  is  by  no  means  new.  But  its  applica- 
tions need  to  be  constantly  passed  in  review. 
Social  changes  take  place  so  rapidly  that 
part  of  the  efficiency- value  of  a  school  educa- 
tion to-day  consists  in  its  intense  modernness. 
It  must  be  up  to  date,  and  it  must  bring  the 
scholars  up  to  date.  More  than  this,  it  must 
give  them  an  adaptability  and  a  suppleness 
of  mind  which  shall  put  them  on  the  qui  vive 
for  new  occasions  and  the  arising  of  new 
duties.  It  is  well  to  press  somewhat  this 
anticipative  or  forward-looking  aspect  of 
any  education  that  has  a  high  efficiency-value. 
If  we  believe  that  education,  in  the  nature  of 
things,  is  in  the  main  a  conservative  tendency 


ON  EDUCATION  107 

in  national  life,  and  view  it,  therefore,  as 
inevitable  that  'the  great  majority  of  schools 
embody  in  their  work  the  intellectual  pre- 
suppositions of  the  past  generation/  what 
can  we  add  but  that  'consequently  any 
change  in  the  intellectual  atmosphere  of 
a  nation  does  not  fully  show  itself  in  its  school 
system  until  nearly  fifty  years  later?' 

Weightily  as  this  view  was  urged  in  an 
important  work  published  in  1911,  one  wishes 
to  lay  beside  it  the  opposite  opinion.  It  is 
so  easy  for  us  to  fall  asleep  beneath  the  shadow 
of  fifty  years  ago;  so  essential  for  us  to  wake 
up  if  we  are  calculating  on  the  chances  of 
life  and  welfare  on  the  immediate  morrow. 
The  nations  that  have  looked  ahead  in  educa- 
tional matters  have  reaped  the  benefit. 
Human  prevision  and  ingenuity  ought  not  to 
accept  this  stultifying  doctrine.  Schools  need 
not  be  a  generation  behind  the  times.  On 
the  contrary,  everything  concerning  school 
studies  and  their  treatment,  organisation 
and  its  aims,  administration  and  its  spirit, 
must  be  continually  undergoing  readjustment, 
in  view,  not  of  the  pre-suppositions  of  the  past 
generation,  but  of  our  prevision  and  forecast 
of  the  future.  Education  is  the  creatively 
progressive  tendency  in  national  life.  And 


108  MODERN  VIEWS 

education,  in  the  nature  of  things,  will  do 
what  we  demand  from  it. 

This  preliminary  word  has  importance 
from  the  standpoint  of  these  chapters,  and 
it  bears  directly  upon  the  present  topic. 
A  nation  can  no  more  afford  to  be  behind  in 
its  schools  than  in  its  armaments.  Both  in 
the  broadest  and  in  the  narrowest  sense, 
men  are  more  than  armaments — in  the 
broadest  sense,  for  in  all  life's  great  purposes 
and  in  all  that  makes  for  a  nation's  strength 
it  is  manhood  that  avails;  in  the  narrowest 
sense,  too,  for  proof  of  which  we  need  not 
go  very  far  back  in  the  world's  naval  and 
military  history.  It  is  the  common  belief 
and  expectation  that  education  should  have 
an  efficiency- value.  Even  those  who  proclaim 
its  failure  in  no  measured  terms  derive  some 
of  the  heat  of  their  protest  from  the  belief 
that  it  should  be  otherwise.  Along  two  lines 
only  shall  we  follow  up  this  expectation  :  the 
first  of  these  in  the  present  chapter,  namely, 
that  an  all-round  curriculum  has  what  may 
be  called  an  efficiency- value;  the  second  in 
the  chapter  that  follows,  namely,  that  there 
is  room  for  the  admission  in  all  complete 
school  courses  of  a  certain  amount  of  voca- 
tional study. 


ON   EDUCATION  109 

1.  The  Efficiency-value  of  an  All-round 
Curriculum. — Lessons  which  bring  the  scholar 
into  touch  with  the  world's  life  must  be  doing 
something  to  prepare  him  to  participate  in 
it.  And  the  very  recollection  of  this  fact  has 
much  to  do  with  keeping  school  work  alive 
and  actual  rather  than  abstract  and  aloof 
from  things  that  matter.  Once  let  teachers 
realise,  as  so  many  do,  that  the  end  in  view 
in  their  work  is  the  making  of  men,  that  the 
school  has  a  direct  and  incalculable  efficiency- 
value  in  the  quickening  of  the  impulses  which 
lead  to  power  in  work,  public-spirited  citizen- 
ship, and  ennobled  personality,  and  their  work 
is  no  longer  the  'day -jobbing'  to  which  more 
than  one  professionally  connected  with  it 
has  compared  it.  It  is  a  mission,  and  the 
teacher  becomes  a  herald  of  a  higher  social 
order  and  a  nobler  patriotism. 

It  is  noticeable  that  every  ordinary 
school  subject  has  undergone  transformation 
since  the  school  books  of  forty  years  ago  were 
written.  It  is  pertinent  to  ask  whether  there 
are  traces  of  any  guiding  principle  running 
through  the  changes  that  have  taken  place. 
Looking  back,  we  find  that  the  child's 
geography  primer  which  began  with  four  or 
five  pages  of  definitions,  the  question  and 


110  MODERN   VIEWS 

answer  manual  of  *  sciences  epitomised,' 
Mangnall's  Questions,  the  Historical  Reason 
Why,  and  the  like — however  good  their 
intention — did  comparatively  little  to  bring 
the  child  into  understanding  touch  with  his 
environment.  It  is  in  the  direction  of  this 
understanding  touch  that  modern  changes 
have  been  tending.  One  or  two  subjects 
may  be  selected  to  illustrate  this  tendency. 

2.  The  Efficiency  of  Geography  as  a  School 
Subject. — The  child's  geography  to-day  starts 
where  the  child  lives,  and  gradually  widens 
his  vision  until  city,  county,  country,  continent, 
empire,  stand  in  his  mind  for  some  sort  of 
living  reality.  He  gains  insight  into  the 
variety  of  environment  provided  by  nature, 
and  into  the  ways  in  which  man  adapts  him- 
self to  varying  environments.  Through  the 
real  and  the  near  is  the  child's  way  of  approach 
to  the  real  and  the  far.  Through  his  own 
observation  he  is  taught  to  interpret  for  him- 
self the  records  of  what  others  have  seen, 
and  of  the  lives  that  other  people  live. 
Imagination  is  set  to  work  even  more  than 
memory. 

.  There  are  yet  directions,  of  course,  and  there 
is  one  direction  in  particular,  in  which  the 
direct  efficiency-value  of  geography  may  be 


ON  EDUCATION  111 

increased.  Supposing,  as  we  may,  that  by  the 
time  the  child  is  twelve  he  has  a  general 
knowledge  of  the  geography  of  his  own 
country,  of  the  outstanding  physical  features 
of  the  world,  of  the  great  areas  of  produc- 
tion (mineral,  agricultural,  manufacturing), 
and  of  the  main  facts  of  the  intercourse 
between  nation  and  nation  in  commerce, — 
time  may  thenceforward,  with  advantage, 
be  given  to  enabling  him  to  realise  more  fully 
the  meaning  of  countries  as  the  dwelling- 
places  of  nations.  An  elementary  school 
education  cannot  hope  to  do  this  excepting 
in  a  very  incidental  way  for  countries  outside 
the  empire.  But  if,  say,  the  two  years  from 
twelve  to  fourteen  were  given  to  gaining 
knowledge  of  the  peoples  living  in  different 
parts  of  the  empire,  their  traditions  and 
customs,  and  needs — it  would  be  time  un- 
speakably well  spent.  It  affords  a  great 
educational  opportunity  and  represents  little 
less  than  the  imperial  necessity  of  the 
child's  leaving  school  with  some  sympathetic 
knowledge  both  of  conditions  of  life  in 
the  colonies,  and  of  peoples  of  different  race 
who  are  his  fellow-citizens  in  the  British 
Empire. 

Secondary  education  may  well   include   a 


112  MODERN  VIEWS 

similarly  close  and  sympathetic  study  of 
other  great  nations  of  Europe,  Asia,  and 
America;  but  primary  education  should  not 
fail  to  give  to  all  British  children  a  knowledge 
from  which  shall  spring  a  feeling  of  kinship 
and  sympathy  with  all  peoples  who  live  under 
the  British  flag.  None  should  go  from  our 
shores,  in  whatever  capacity,  unenlightened 
by  such  study,  and,  because  unenlightened, 
unsympathetic  toward  races  having  tradi- 
tions and  ideals  of  their  own,  and  in  some 
instances  possessing  a  culture  and  an  intel- 
lectual capacity  differing  from,  but  not 
necessarily  to  be  regarded  as  inferior  to,  our 
own. 

Mrs  Besant,  speaking  at  the  Letchworth 
Summer  School  in  August,  1912,  in  an  address 
of  great  power,  brought  home  this  need. 
(Not  as  a  school  question,  but  it  surely  is  such.) 
'We  send  our  missionaries  over  to  them,  but 
English  people  themselves  should  first  be 
taught.'  The  Indians  and  ourselves  are,  for 
example,  of  one  race,  the  Aryan.  Colour,  as 
Mrs  Besant  urged,  is  superficial,  but  race 
has  to  do  with  the  physical  build,  with 
quality  of  brain,  and,  therefore,  with  faculty 
and  power.  '  We  are  dealing  with  institutions, 
and  rights,  and  privileges,  and  must  realise 


ON  EDUCATION  113 

that  we  are  to  deal  with  a  type,  and  not  with 
the  colour  of  the  skin.  Only  in  that  way  can 
an  Empire  like  ours  hope  to  grow  into  real 
stability.'  Geography  may  well  have  a  high 
efficiency- value  in  the  education  of  an  imperial 
people.  Its  use  may  be  not  only  to  give  a 
knowledge  of  the  way  from  one  part  of  the 
Empire  to  another,  but  also  of  the  first  prin- 
ciples of  right  adjustment  to  the  peoples  we 
shall  meet  when  we  get  there. 

3.  To  take  another  school  subject,  Elementary 
Science,  or  Nature  Study.  Where  in  many 
schools  has  a  greater  transformation  taken 
place,  and  where  in  some  schools  is  it  still 
more  needed,  than  in  respect  of  the  tit-bits 
series  of  object  lessons,  now  often  dignified 
by  the  name  of  '  elementary  science*  ?  Imagine 
this  as  a  Board  of  Education  list  of  object- 
lessons,  dated  1900,  for  the  second  standard : 
'Horse,  sparrow,  roots,  stems,  buds,  leaves, 
candles,  soap,  cork,  paper.1  No  wonder 
that  similar  lesson-lists  are  still  to  ba  found 
in  many  schools !  The  more  adequate  and 
recent  view  is  that  elementary  science,  or 
Nature  study,  is  primarily  the  study  of  our 
environment — of  life  and  force  and  the 
products  and  effects  of  life  and  force,  which 
make  the  earth  a  home  for  man  as  well  as 


114  MODERN  VIEWS 

for  countless  other  living  things,  both  plants 
and  animals. 

In  this  sense,  Nature  study  does  not  mean, 
in  its  first  stages,  the  formal  study  of  any 
one  science.  It  unifies,  rather,  the  elements 
or  foundations  of  the  sciences,  whether  of 
plant  or  animal  life,  of  earth-building  and 
earth-sculpture,  or  of  physical  and  chemical 
phenomena.  It  is  a  presenting  of  the  world 
to  the  child  from  the  point  of  view  of  its 
harmony  and  connectedness.  Later,  de- 
limitation may  come  in  and  science  be 
marked  off  into  its  several  branches.  Con- 
nected Nature  study  (or  elementary  science) 
of  this  kind  will  be  a  sort  of  corrective 
to  the  geography  lesson,  of  which  the  key- 
note is  man's  struggle  and  triumph  in  erecting 
cities,  establishing  commerce,  and  gaining 
mastery.  The  Nature  lesson  will  deepen  the 
child's  wonder,  as  it  step  by  step  reveals  the 
marvel  and  unity  of  the  surrounding  world. 

This  subject,  none  the  less,  has  a  practical 
or  efficiency-value.  For  by  whatever  precise 
stages  the  human  race  passed  from  the  savage 
state  to  the  domestication  of  animals  and  to 
the  pursuit  of  agriculture,  man's  early  progress 
implied  a  growing  knowledge,  and  through 
that  knowledge  an  increasing  control,  of 


ON  EDUCATION  115 

surrounding  wild  nature.  Nor  have  these 
pursuits  ceased  to  belong  to  man's  progress 
and  well-being.  'The  life,  the  fortune,  and 
the  happiness  of  every  one  of  us/  says  Huxley, 
'depend  upon  our  knowing  something  of 
the  rules  of  a  game  infinitely  more  difficult 
and  complicated  than  chess.  The  chess- 
board is  the  world,  the  pieces  are  the  phenom- 
ena of  the  universe,  the  rules  of  the  game 
are  what  we  call  the  laws  of  Nature.  .  .  . 
Education  is  learning  the  rules  of  this  mighty 
game/ 

In  town  and  country  schools  alike  there 
is  need  for  this  study.  Concerning  the  value 
of  Nature  study  in  town  schools,  a  singularly 
direct  testimony  was  borne  by  Mr  Vice- 
Consul  Erskine  in  his  well-known  report  on 
'Education  in  Chicago/  presented  to  the 
Foreign  Office,  London,  in  December,  1900. 
After  describing  the  Nature  study  courses  in 
Public  Elementary  Schools,  he  says:  'These 
studies  in  Nature  are  found  to  be  of  great 
use  to  children,  making  them  observe  the 
common  things  around  them  with  intelligence, 
and  giving  them  instruction  about  many 
things  that  working  people  have  to  do  with 
in  the  course  of  their  labours,  and  enabling 
them  to  bring  these  theories  into  practical 


116  MODERN    VIEWS 

use.  This  education  turns  out  the  boys  into 
the  world  with  a  wonderful  self-reliance  and 
capacity  for  seizing  their  opportunities.  .  .  . 
Many  of  them  rise  rapidly,  and  at  early  ages 
are  at  the  heads  of  departments.'  Allowing, 
as  we  may,  a  margin  for  any  excess  of 
enthusiasm  on  the  part  of  the  Vice-Consul's 
informant,  there  is  evident  point  in  what  is 
here  said.  Something  is  accomplished  which 
never  would  be  accomplished  under  a  *  candle, 
soap,  cork,  paper5  regime.  The  Chicago 
scheme  and  an  equally  suggestive  time- 
table of  school  studies  are  given  in  a  short 
chapter  supplementary  to  this. 

Specific  instances  of  the  serviceableness  of 
Nature  knowledge  might  easily  be  quoted. 
As  might  be  expected,  man's  action  tends  at 
times  to  disturb  the  balance  of  nature. 
Commerce  may  be  a  direct  cause  of  the  intro- 
duction of  insect  pests  into  a  country.  France, 
for  example,  is  said  to  have  lost  far  more 
from  the  ravages  of  the  small  green  fly, 
phylloxera,  in  its  vineyards,  than  from  the 
Franco-German  War — a  statement  which  is 
borne  out  by  the  fact  that  owing  to  the 
devastations  of  this  insect  pest  the  area  under 
vineyards  decreased  from  6,382,000  acres 
in  1875  to  2,868,000  acres  in  1885.  The  insect 


ON  EDUCATION  117 

itself  seems  to  have  been  brought  from  North 
America,  where  it  infests  the  native  vines, 
but  without  serious  injury  to  them.  Austria, 
Portugal,  and  Germany  have  also  suffered 
seriously  from  this  same  fly.  On  the  other 
hand,  America  has  suffered  so  much  from 
imported  European  pests  that  recommenda- 
tions have  from  time  to  time  been  made  to 
institute  an  inspection  of  all  nursery  stock 
plants,  etc.,  imported  into  the  United  States, 
and  even  from  one  State  into  another. 

Specialists  alone  will  be  able  to  trace  sources 
of  disturbance.  But,  if  he  is  early  trained 
to  habits  of  observation,  and  gains  some 
knowledge  of  what  to  look  for.  the  'practical 
man ' — too  often  content  with  rule  of  thumb — 
may  be  put  on  the  alert.  Husbandmen, 
agriculturists,  fruit-growers,  will  all  benefit 
by  the  possession  of  knowledge  which  at 
the  very  least  makes  them  watchful.  They 
will  realise  how  impolitic  it  is  to  wait  for 
disturbance  and  disaster  to  spread  before 
investigations  are  commenced. 

The  minds  of  practical  men  would  also 
be  prepared  to  receive  the  suggestions  of 
specialists.  The  story  of  Pasteur's  services 
to  the  silk-growers  of  France  illustrates  this. 
There  is  a  disease  to  which  the  silkworm  is 


118  MODERN  VIEWS 

liable  in  all  its  stages,  and  of  which  traces 
can  even  be  discovered  in  the  eggs  of  the 
silkworm  moth.  At  the  time  when  Pasteur 
undertook  the  study  of  this  disease,  known 
as  pebrine,  the  silk  industry  in  France  was  at 
a  very  low  ebb.  Yet  because  it  was  said 
that  Pasteur  had  never  seen  a  silkworm,  the 
people  laughed  at  the  idea  of  having  him  as 
an  adviser.  But  Pasteur  knew  how  to  detect 
the  presence  of  the  disease-germs  which  were 
causing  the  trouble,  and  suggested  remedies. 
Where  his  advice  was  followed  the  disease 
was  practically  stamped  out,  and  the  industry 
immediately  began  to  revive.  Open-minded- 
ness  to  the  knowledge  of  others,  and  watchful- 
ness for  conditions  to  which  the  expert's 
attention  should  be  called,  result  from  an 
education  which  deals  with  the  real  world 
in  an  awakening  way. 

4.  Language  Study  and  Literature,  and 
their  Efficiency-values. — We  may  recognise  the 
value  of  literature  in  man's  practical  life 
without  in  the  least  overlooking  its  value  as 
culture  and  as  a  pursuit  in  hours  of  leisure. 
The  story  of  the  life  of  Socrates  as  patriot, 
soldier,  and  philosopher,  and  of  his  wonderful 
bearing  at  his  trial  and  afterwards  at  his 
death;  the  story  of  Hereward  the  Wake; 


ON   EDUCATION  119 

of  the  Scottish  heroine  as  told  in  The  Heart 
of  Midlothian;  tales  of  Scottish  chiefs,  or 
Maccabaean  heroes;  of  Winkelried,  Washing- 
ton, Garibaldi;  tales  of  heroes  of  science  and 
of  geographical  discovery,  and  of  the  patience 
of  great  inventors,  offer  examples  from  human 
story  which  awaken  within  the  child  the 
instinct  to  excel. 

Hence  we  need  to  think  of  c  literature  *  not 
as  lessons  about  books,  but  as  actual  enjoy- 
ment of  the  books  themselves.  The  finger- 
posts are  not  the  road;  and  useful  guide- 
books to  literature  are  not  the  literature 
itself. 

The  study  of  language,  again,  has  an 
almost  incalculable  practical  value.  The  art 
of  clear  and  accurate  speech  is  of  all  arts 
that  which  has  most  worth  for  man.  Schools 
(noticeably,  but  not  exclusively,  in  America) 
are  sometimes  apt  in  allowing  exercise  in 
self-expression,  inapt  in  enforcing  the  study 
of  that  art.  Oral  teaching  may  make  words 
too  cheap;  but  it  may  also  reveal  their 
power.  Grammar  teaching  is  scarcely  worth 
while  from  any  other  point  of  view  than 
this.  It  is  a  study  of  the  rules,  and  a  conscious 
acquiring  of  the  power,  of  accurate  expression. 
The  grammarian  does  not  exist  to  mar  the 


120  MODERN  VIEWS 

child's  feeling  for  fine  literature  by  analysing, 
parsing,  paraphrasing.  He  is  the  friend  of 
the  child's  admiration.  He  teaches  him  what 
to  listen  for :  reveals  to  the  child  what  is 
the  fitting  relation  of  word  to  word,  so  that 
the  child  may  have  an  open  ear  for  fitness  of 
phrase  and  exactness  of  expression  in  speech 
or  in  writing.  And  here,  in  all  candour,  is 
one  of  the  advantages  of  the  classics.  There 
is  probably  no  surer  way,  for  the  few  that 
find  it,  of  acquiring  the  habit  of  studying 
the  force  of  words  than  in  rendering  one  of 
Cicero's  treatises  or  orations,  or  one  of  Virgil's 
finer  passages,  into  English. 

Grammar,  as  the  unfolding  of  the  principles 
which  underlie  the  art  of  accurate  speaking, 
shades  off  into  logic.  And,  of  the  things  that 
ought  to  find  a  place  in  school  teaching, 
but  seldom  do,  logic  may  claim  to  be  men- 
tioned first;  not,  however,  the  dreary  wastes 
of  '  formal  logic'  with  its  'Barbara,  celarent,' 
its  woefully  uninteresting  'doctrine  of  terms,' 
its  wading  through  minutiae  to  things  that 
matter.  Ere  the  principles  of  logic  can 
be  widely  useful  to  the  teacher  the  whole 
text-book  treatment  of  the  subject  will  have 
to  be  re-shaped;  just  as  psychology,  under 
the  influence  of  a  genetic  treatment  (one, 


ON  EDUCATION  121 

that  is,  which  begins  with  the  child)  has 
turned  right  about;  so  that  the  active  powers, 
which  formerly  took  up  what  time  was  left 
after  discussing  at  length  the  intellectual 
powers  and  the  feelings,  now  take  front 
place.  Yet  the  logical  habit  is  everything. 
Logic  is  needed  not  as  a  'subject,'  but  as  a 
mode  of  intellectual  life.  And  education  has 
a  poor  claim  to  efficiency- value  if  it  does  not 
give  the  power  to  distinguish  the  processes 
of  truth  from  the  processes  of  error.  A  claim 
has  been  put  in  by  a  Professor  of  Education 
in  one  of  our  British  Universities  for  the 
actual  teaching  of  logic  in  schools.  This  is 
not  really  necessary.  But  what  is  necessary  is 
that  the  teacher  shall  be  master  of  the  main 
principles  of  logic. 

It  is  a  matter  of  the  first  importance  that 
the  school  should  give  training  in  sound 
judgment;  in  the  power  to  distinguish  the 
worse  from  the  better  reason.  It  should  help 
to  inhibit  the  illogical  habit  of  '  jumping  to 
conclusions';  and  to  habituate  the  scholar 
to  measuring  the  meaning  of  statements. 
There  can  scarcely  be  a  finer  practice  for 
sharpening  the  wits  and  creating  the  habit 
of  intellectual  alertness  than  occasionally, 
when  an  illogical  statement  is  made  by  a 
M.V.E.  F 


122  MODERN  VIEWS 

scholar  or  found  in  one  of  his  text-books,  to 
get  the  class  to  probe  the  point  thoroughly 
and  detect  the  real  nature  of  the  error. 
School  in  this  way  tends  to  turn  out  those  who 
live  not  by  hearsay,  but  who  wait  for  evidence, 
and  are  accustomed,  so  far  as  the  length  of 
their  schooling  and  their  possession  of  average 
reasoning  power  have  made  this  possible,  to 
assessing  evidence  before  they  accept  it. 

Logic  in  these  ways  is  directly  connected 
with  the  language  arts.  It  has  to  do  with 
correct  thinking,  as  correct  thinking  has  to 
do  with  correct  speaking.  And  more 
'accidents'  arise  from  the  wrong  use  of  words 
than  from  all  other  'means  of  communication* 
put  together. 

The  three  examples  so  far  considered  are 
selected  to  indicate  that  it  may  be  possible 
so  to  interpret  the  ordinary  lessons  of  the 
school  as  to  invest  them  with  practicality, 
without  robbing  them  of  any  of  their  educa- 
tional qualities — rather,  it  is  believed, 
enhancing  these. 

5.  We  have  a  totally  different  type  of 
subject  in  Educational  Handwork.  The 
handicap  of  the  teacher  in  having  to  deal 
with  classes  the  size  of  which  makes  them 
almost  impracticable,  a  situation  that  still 


ON  EDUCATION  123 

too  often  occurs,  was  pointedly  described  by 
a  speaker  at  one  of  the  meetings  in  1907 
of  the  Education  Section  of  the  British 
Association.  'We  set  the  children  at  rows 
of  desks  and  say,  "Don't."  The  remedy 
proposed  was  that  there  should  be  work- 
rooms in  every  school  where  we  could  say 
to  the  children,  "Do." '  This  is  an  essential  of 
a  right  education.  It  brings  the  child  into 
direct  and  educative  contact  with  tools  and 
materials.  But  we  may  go  further  than  this. 
(For  an  example  see  pages  143-144). 

Up  to  the  end  of  the  twelfth  year,  at  the 
very  least,  forms  of  handwork  which  fit  in 
with  ideas  and  interests  that  have  quickened 
the  child's  imagination  should  have  a  prior 
claim.  The  association  of  idea  with  per- 
formance, the  clarifying  and  broadening 
of  ideas  through  performance,  is  both  a 
method  of  learning  and  initiation  into  the 
art  of  living.  At  present,  too  much  of  the 
time  spent  in  woodwork  by  the  boy  between 
twelve  and  fourteen  is  consumed  in  making 
useless  miniature  representations  of  objects 
rather  than  objects  of  use.  A  model  that 
works,  such  as  boys  of  this  age  sometimes 
make,  is  a  different  matter.  A  good  balance, 
a  signal  with  levers,  a  model  of  a  crane,  rank 


124  MODERN   VIEWS 

with  objects  of  use.  But  with  respect  to  the 
making  of  miniature  objects,  merely  to 
incorporate  certain  'exercises,'  many  wood- 
work instructors  of  to-day  are  saying  with 
a  well-known  British  educationist :  *  A  model 
is  an  invention  of  the  Evil  One.' 

Some  important  cities  have  even  had 
courses  in  woodwork  in  which  the  first  three 
or  four  months  have  had  no  other  visible 
outcome  than  the  wasting  of  wood  used  for 
*  exercises.'  Obviously,  the  tendency  of  this 
must  be  to  rob  the  boys'  fingers  of  their  native 
itch  for  contact  with  tools  and  materials. 
It  is  part  of  the  instinctive  life  and  tendency 
of  child  and  adult  to  take  pleasure  in  making 
things.  The  more  meaning  the  thing  that  is 
made  has  for  him  that  makes  it,  the  greater 
does  this  pleasure  tend  to  be,  and,  from  the 
standpoint  of  efficiency,  the  gain  to  the  child 
from  educative  handiwork  lies  in  the  attitude 
that  is  cultivated  quite  as  much  as  in  the 
dexterities  that  are  acquired.  He  gains  a 
sense  of  mastery  and  a  readiness  for  life's 
demands. 

6.  Aspects  of  Secondary  Education  and 
Efficiency-values. — The  reference  in  the  fore- 
going sections  is  most  directly  to  Primary 
Education;  but  the  same  principles  as  was 


ON  EDUCATION  125 

said  at  the  close  of  the  previous  chapter, 
apply  throughout.  It  is  in  the  Secondary 
School,  and  the  higher  its  grade  the  truer  this 
becomes,  that  the  outlook  upon  life  becomes 
more  personal  and  direct.  The  Warden  of 
Bradfield  College  read  a  paper  recently  before 
the  Royal  Colonial  Institute,  in  which  he  was 
dealing  with  the  influence  of  Imperial  responsi- 
bilities on  educational  reform,  and  in  which 
almost  point  by  point  he  applies  to  the 
Secondary  School  the  arguments  of  the  present 
chapter.  The  press  report  ran  as  follows  : — 
'He  insisted  on  the  importance  of  the  study 
of  historical  geography,  which,  on  account  of 
the  inordinate  claims  of  the  two  dead  languages 
over  the  student's  time,  had  practically  no 
scope  in  the  existing  curriculum  of  our  Public 
Schools.  The  ignorance  of  the  insular  school- 
boy and,  for  the  matter  of  that,  the  insular 
Englishman  of  the  geographical  conditions, 
of  the  vastness  of  extent,  and  of  the  varied 
sources  of  wealth  in  our  Empire  was  phenom- 
enal. Another  serious  defect  in  English 
education,  and  one  which  stifled  the  growth 
of  Imperialistic  ideas,  was  the  almost  total 
absence  of  manual  training  in  our  best-known 
schools.  It  is  hardly  an  exaggeration  to 
say  that  the  sense  of  connection  between 


126  MODERN  VIEWS 

mind  and  hand,  which  formed  so  integral 
a  part  in  the  system  of  a  liberal  education  in 
America,  was  an  undiscovered  sense  in  English 
schools.  Such  a  system  seemed  to  be  the  only 
true  preparation  for  training  the  students  to 
encounter  on  the  frontier  of  a  half-developed 
Empire  the  daily  difficulties  and  practical 
problems  which  pioneers  were  called  upon 
to  grapple  with  and  to  subdue.  .  .  . 

*  The  curricula  in  every  Secondary  School 
ought  to  include  a  complete  apparatus,  and 
teachers,  for  instruction  in  manual  labour 
and  the  acquisition  of  a  trade.  The  pioneers 
of  an  undeveloped  country  ought  early  in 
life  to  have  instilled  into  them  the  dignity  of 
such  labour,  if  they  were  to  be  the  conquerors 
of  nature  and  to  subdue  the  obstacles  of  field 
and  forest,  of  river  and  mountain,  to  the  will 
of  man.  .  .  . 

'  On  the  edge  of  a  wilderness  men  had  to  think 
and  act  alone,  to  depend  on  an  unassisted 
resourcefulness;  and  that  this  power  ought 
to  be  learned  at  the  stage  of  Secondary 
Education  it  was  almost  a  truism  to  main- 
tain. .  ,  .  But,  above  all,  it  was  essential  that 
education  should  provide  for  the  scientific 
study  of  English.' 

Let  it  be  admitted  that  the  actual  making 


ON  EDUCATION  127 

of  men  through  the  responsibilities  and  the 
offices  of  Empire  is  mainly  accomplished  on 
the  spot;  yet  the  school  can  give  the  out- 
look, prepare  the  mind  with  knowledge,  and 
do  much  to  adapt  the  character.  The  fact 
of  Empire  is  in  itself  educative.  Risks  and 
burdens  beyond  our  own  shores  widen  our 
outlook.  There  is  the  pride,  too,  in  brother- 
peoples,  who  went  as  sons  from  our  shores, 
and  are  fellow-members  with  us  in  one 
commonwealth.  There  is  advantage  in  learn- 
ing to  appreciate  the  intellectual  dignity 
and  noble  traditions  of  fellow-subjects  of 
ancient  races.  The  methods  of  Chester 
Macnaughten,  the  schoolmaster  of  the  Jam 
of  Nawanagar,  who  gave  the  young  prince 
his  first  lessons  in  cricket,  are  worthy  of 
careful  study.  His  success  was  due  to  the  use 
he  made  of  Indian  models  and  the  ideals  which 
had  from  their  childhood  been  held  up  before 
his  pupils,  who  were  the  sons  of  Indian  chiefs. 
The  past  lived  again  before  them  in  their 
head  master's  sympathy  with  it,  and  he  was 
enabled  to  train  amongst  these  Indian  princes 
many  who  are  taking,  and  will  take,  a  worthy 
place  as  rulers  of  a  part  of  the  British  Empire. 
Already  we  have  abundant  proof  that  we 
have  entered  upon  the  greatest  of  the  centuries. 


128  MODERN  VIEWS 

But  we  found  ourselves,  as  the  editor  of  the 
Teachers'  Guild  Quarterly  says,  in  an  article 
on  'Empire  and  Education,'  'beginning  the 
twentieth  century  but  poorly  equipped  in  many 
respects  for  the  world-struggle  for  existence. 
Yet  the  spirit  of  the  age  had  been  at  work. 
While  the  head  masters  from  great  public 
schools  were  discussing  the  question  of  '  Com- 
pulsory Greek,'  other  teachers  were  advancing 
the  claims  of  modern  languages;  while 
scholarships  to  the  old  Universities  were  more 
and  more  being  awarded  for  excellence  in 
one  or  two  branches  of  study,  over-specialisa- 
tion at  school  was  being  denounced  by  the 
Master  of  Trinity  and  other  high,  though  less 
eloquent,  authorities;  while  the  education 
of  boys  in  our  public  schools  was  still  mainly 
directed  to  proficiency  in  dead  languages, 
some  girls'  high  schools  were  enjoying  a 
broader  curriculum  which  laid  more  stress 
on  'outlook  studies'  and  on  the  mother- 
tongue.  We  have  now  reached  the  point 
when  a  national  effort  must  be  made  to 
modernise  our  higher  school  education  in 
all  directions  and  for  all  pupils.' 

In  harmony  with  views  already  quoted, 
this  writer  advocates  a  general  education  for 
all  pupils  up  to  the  age  of  sixteen  as  being 


ON  EDUCATION  129 

necessary  if  the  rising  generation  is  to  eon- 
front  the  problems  of  the  early  future  with 
an  adequate  mental  equipment.  The  sub- 
jects of  such  a  foundational  higher  education, 
or  pre-specialisation  course,  would  be  (and 
the  list  agrees  with  those  already  given  in 
other  connections) — the  mother-tongue  and 
its  literature;  science,  and  especially  physics, 
the  'ground  science';  mathematics;  'outlook 
subjects/  such  as  history  and  geography; 
manual  training;  and  at  least  one  language 
besides  the  mother-tongue.  If  two  other 
languages  are  possible,  then  they  should  be 
either  French  and  German,  or  one  of  these 
and  either  Latin  or  Greek.  German  should 
not  be  neglected  as  it  is  at  present.  No 
preference  should  be  given  to  a  dead  over 
a  living  language. 

Preparation  for  the  real  activities  of  life 
finds  its  natural  place  in  the  secondary  school. 
Some  five  or  six  schools  stand  out  as  having 
pioneered  a  way  to  purpose-serving  occupa- 
tions in  direct  line  with  the  world's  work. 
Thring  started  carpentry  at  Uppingham; 
0,nd  Ruskin,  when  he  was  Slade  Professor  at 
Oxford,  led  a  group  of  students  to  spend 
their  afternoons  in  spade-work  with  him, 
making  some  ditches  which  had  to  be  dug. 


130  MODERN  VIEWS 

Since  then  the  boys  of  Sedburgh  and  Shrews- 
bury and  Bath  have  done  navvy  work  in 
their  playing  fields.  So  have  the  boys  of 
Manchester  Grammar  School.  The  younger 
boys  at  Bedales  and  Abbotsholme  take 
gardening  seriously;  and  the  older  ones,  hay- 
making, shed-building,  fence-making  on  the 
estates.  A  few  of  the  Bedales  boys,  under 
the  leadership  of  one  who  was  preparing  to 
be  an  engineer,  have  built  a  thoroughly 
workmanlike  cricket  pavilion.  At  Clayes- 
more  the  boys  have  shared  in  putting  up 
their  playing-fields'  pavilion  and  in  construct- 
ing their  own  rifle  range.  'They  will  not/ 
says  the  head  master,  *  shoot  less  straight  or 
display  less  patriotism  than  those  for  whom 
everything  is  done  by  hired  labour.'  On  the 
contrary,  this  kind  of  work — and  the  man  of 
secondary  school  experience  is  not  quite 
happy  who  cannot  look  back  upon  some 
share  in  work  of  the  kind — is  in  promising 
contrast  to  the  description  of  the  general 
shiftlessness  of  some  ex-secondary  schoolboys 
as  described  from  actual  life  in  the  English 
Review  for  September,  1912  :  'Mostly  charm- 
ing fellows,  who  could  and  should  be  earning 
well  of  the  State.  Yet  they  are  useless, 
and  feel  themselves  to  be  useless.  It  is, 


ON  EDUCATION  131 

indeed,    one    of    the    problems    of    modern 
England. 

Meantime,  are  these  great  schools  doing 
nothing?  It  has  been  England's  way  to 
wake  up  just  in  time,  though  not  always 
without  a  good  deal  of  calling.  To  give  one 
example,  reforms  have  recently  been  made  at 
Harrow  and  Rugby.  Insistence  upon  English 
teaching  is  their  key-note.  Chaucer,  Lang- 
land,  More,  Spenser,  Shakespeare,  Bacon, 
Milton,  Locke  have  nutriment  in  them. 
And  British  boys  will  on  the  average  come  to 
them  with  a  better-prepared  palate  than  to 
the  study  of  languages  which  comparatively 
few  ever  discover  to  be  literature  at  all. 
This  return  to  English  after  nearly  six  hundred 
years  has  within  it  momentous  possibilities. 

The  efficiency-value  of  University  studies 
is  upon  another  plane.  If  learning  is  to  be 
sustained  and  research  carried  forward,  if 
standards  of  reference  are  to  be  set  up  and 
kept  up  in  any  of  the  great  domains  of  know- 
ledge, pure  and  applied,  there  must  be  centres 
devoted  to  study  and  investigation.  The 
University  is  the  place  of  concourse  of  teachers, 
certainly,  but  also  of  Masters  of  Learning. 
Let  historical  study  serve  for  an  example. 


132  MODERN  VIEWS 

Its  results  offer  the  surest  data  to  the 
politician,  and  its  conclusions  the  best  guid- 
ance to  the  social  reformer.  A  familiar 
saying  tells  us  that  'history  is  philosophy 
teaching  by  example';  the  facts  of  life  are, 
that  is  to  say,  the  key  to  the  interpretation 
of  life.  History  is  therefore  one  of  the  key- 
studies,  in  which  sheer  accuracy  has  its  own 
incomparable  value.  Our  interpretations  of 
life  are  fashioned  by  the  continuous  presenta- 
tion and  almost  unconscious  absorption  of 
historical  data;  our  views  of  public  policy 
and  public  duty  are  built  up  in  the  same 
continuous  and  largely  unconscious  fashion. 
It  is  of  the  first  importance  that  the  data, 
presented  to  us  in  a  hundred  ways,  should  be 
accurate.  This  can  only  be  the  case  if  masters 
of  historical  learning  devote  themselves  and 
inspire  others  to  historical  study. 


ON  EDUCATION 


133 


CHAPTER  VIlA 

(Supplementary) 

A  SUGGESTIVE  TIME-TABLE  AND  A  SUGGESTIVE 
SYLLABUS 

Two  of  the  items  included  in  Mr  Vice-Consul 
Erskine's  brief  but  exhaustive  report  on 
Education  in  Chicago  have  so  direct  a 
bearing  upon  the  points  raised  in  the  pre- 
ceding chapter  that  it  seems  well  to  quote 
them. 

1.  The  first  shows  the  courses  of  study 
arranged  for  the  eight  grades,  and  the  time, 
in  minutes  per  week,  assigned  to  each : — 


Subject. 

Grade. 

1st. 

2nd. 

3rd. 

4th. 

5th. 

6th. 

7th. 

8th. 

Opening      —         — 

25 

25 

25 

25 

25 

25 

25 

25 

Reading      —         — 

675 

600 

500 

250 

250 

— 

— 

— 

English       -         - 

150 

115 

100 

65 

65 

145 

175 

175 

History       -         - 

— 

— 

— 

60 

60 

60 

200 

200 

Dictation               - 

— 

50 

50 

60 

60 

60 

60 

60 

Grammar   —         — 

_ 

120 

160 

160 

German  and    Latin 
Mathematics          — 

225 

225 

300 

300/ 

300 

300 

300 

300 

Singing       —         — 

75 

75 

75 

75 

75 

75 

75 

75 

Geography             — 

— 

__ 

200 

250 

300 

— 

__ 

Nature  Study       — 

100 

100 

100 

100 

90 

90 

90 

90 

Writing       -         - 

75 

75 

100 

100 

60 

60 

60 

60 

Drawing     —         — 

_ 

60 

75 

90 

90 

90 

90 

90 

Manual  Training 



90 

90 

Physical  Training 

50 

60 

50 

60 

50 

60 

60 

60 

Recreation             — 

125 

125 

125 

125 

125 

125 

125 

125 

134  MODERN  VIEWS 

(a)  Five    minutes    a    day   allotted  to  the 
opening  exercises  contrast  with  the  thirty- 
five  to  fifty  minutes  given  daily  to  religious 
instruction    and    exercises    in    this    country. 
If  education  were  regarded  as  a  matter  of 
competition  between  one  nation  and  another, 
it  would  be  bad  educational  policy,  if  nothing 
more,  to  forfeit  so  much  of  the  early  and  best 
part  of  each  day  to  lessons  which  are  said  in 
in  a  large  number  of  cases  to  fail  of  their  high 
purpose,  and  which  in  many  instances  have 
an  adverse  effect.    The  nature  of  the  opening 
exercises  in  American  schools,  which  occupy 
usually  from  five  to  fifteen  minutes,  the  writer 
has  dealt  with  in  a  report  in  the  tenth  volume 
of  Special  Reports  on  Educational  Subjects.1 

(b)  Grammar  is  wisely  postponed  till  the 
sixth  school  year.    Surely  it  is  right  to  regard 
it  as  more  of  the  nature  of  an  analytical  or 
logical    study    of    language    when    acquired, 
than  a  method  of  the  acquisition  of  language. 

(c)  German    and    Latin    are   alternatives. 
Would  it  not  be  a  clear  gain  in  the  education 
of    English-speaking     peoples    if    this    were 
universally  the  case?    It  is  noteworthy  that 
one  or  other  of  these  may  be  taken  up  after 
the  fourth  year.     This  corresponds  with  the 

a  suggestion,  see  page  54. 


ON  EDUCATION  135 

practice  in  some  British  elementary  schools 
of  beginning  French  in  the  fifth  standard. 

(d)  A  noticeable  feature  of  the  time-table 
as  a  whole  is  the  change  of  emphasis  at  differ- 
ent stages  of  the  scholar's  progress.  Whether 
or  not  the  minutes  per  week  given  to  this  or 
that  subject  correspond  detail  by  detail  with 
what  we  individually  might  plan,  there  is 
a  suggestion  of  some  value  in  thus  breaking 
the  monotony  of  the  eight  years'  course  by 
varying  the  programme. 

The  following  rough  time-table  of  the 
seventh  and  eighth  grades  was  given  to  the 
writer  by  the  Principal  of  the  Forestville 
School,  Chicago,  a  school  in  which  the  work 
in  literature  is  a  marked  feature,  though  (as 
the  time  devoted  to  it  shows)  not  by  over- 
insistence  upon  it  in  class : — Latin,  two 
hours;  mathematics,  two  hours;  science, 
two  hours;  English  grammar,  two  hours; 
English  literature,  two  hours;  music,  two 
hours;  German,  two  hours;  study,  five 
hours;  drawing,  an  hour  and  a  half;  manual 
training,  an  hour  and  a  half;  callisthenics, 
one  hour;  history,  two  hours. 

The  recreation  intervals  would  probably 
take  portions  from  one  or  other  of  the  lesson 
periods,  the  times  having  been  rapidly  written 


186  MODERN  VIEWS 

down  by  the  Principal  in  the  course  of  an 
interview.  What  is  noticeable  is  the  richness 
and  variety  of  the  course,1  and  this,  probably, 
not  in  spite  of  but  because  of  the  fact  that 
more  than  twice  as  much  time  is  given  to 
'study'  as  is  given  to  the  direct  teaching  of 
any  individual  subject.  The  suggestion, 
which  is  coming  to  us  also  from  other  sources, 
is  obvious.  It  is  that  we  may  quite  possibly 
be  over-dosing  the  children  with  ourselves. 

This  Chicago  school,  at  any  rate,  is  widely 
and  deservedly  known  for  the  excellence  of 
its  work.  More  intelligent  appreciation  of 
good  English  literature  it  would  be  difficult 
to  find  anywhere  amongst  children  of  Primary 
School  age.  The  Principal  expressed  the 
belief  that  the  general  tendency  is  greatly 
to  underrate  the  aesthetic  and  literary  instincts 
of  children;  and  that  if  children  grow  to 
appreciate  a  noble  play  (a  play  of  Shakespeare 
was  being  taken  at  the  time)  they  have  no 
desire  either  for  dime  novels  or  for  ten  or 
twenty  cent  shows.  'If  we  are  optimists,  we 
ought  to  give  our  best.'  At  first  the  teachers 
in  this  school  were  told  by  outsiders  that  they 

1  This  is,  however,  the  exception  rather  than  the  rule 
in  the  upper  classes  of  the  American  Elementary  School. 
(See  the  chapter  on  Curriculum  and  Character  Building 
in  the  report  just  mentioned). 


ON  EDUCATION  187 

were  teaching  poetry  and  stories  instead  of 
the  three  R's,  to  which  the  Principal  replied, 
4 1  am  giving  twenty  minutes  a  day  to  litera- 
ture; next  year  I  shall  give  an  hour.  This 
year  I  give  an  hour  to  arithmetic;  next  year 
I  shall  give  half  an  hour.'  Yet  the  children 
stand  well  in  all  their  subjects,  arithmetic 
included.  'The  children,'  said  the  Principal, 
'want  variety  in  their  lessons,  just  as  in  their 
diet.'  And  the  response  of  the  children  them- 
selves was  shown  in  many  ways  ;  for  instance, 
by  the  appearance  of  the  seventh  grade  class- 
room, which  was  decorated  with  pictures 
illustrating  Greek  life  and  art,  which  the  class 
had  collected  the  previous  year  when  study- 
ing the  subject-matter  of  the  Iliad  and 
Odyssey;  as  also  in  the  active  interest  taken 
in  the  play  which  they  were  reading. 

The  Nature  Study  courses  in  the  city, 
referred  to  in  the  preceding  chapter,  are 
from  Mr  Vice-Consul  Erskine's  report : — 

SEPTEMBER,  OCTOBER,  NOVEMBER 
All  Grades 

Seeds :     dissemination    by    winds,    currents,    and 

animals. 
Trees  :   preparation  for  winter,  as  shown  by  leaves, 

sap,  and  buds. 
Observation  of  plants  as  the  season  changes. 


138  MODERN  VIEWS 

Insects  :   transformation. 

Birds :   migratory,  non-migratory. 

Homes  and  coverings  of  animals  in  relation  to  season. 

The  human  skin :  function  and  structure;  com- 
parison with  that  of  other  animals. 

Special  attention  given  to  utility  of  structure. 

Daily  record  of  metereological  conditions  through- 
out the  entire  school  year  :  dew,  frost,  clouds, 
fogs,  rainfall,  snow,  hail,  and  direction  of  wind. 

Reading  of  thermometer  and  barometer  in  regard 
to  changes  of  weather. 

For  grammar  grades  :  study  of  weather  bureau  maps* 

Fourth,  Fifth,  and  Sixth  Grades. 
Soil  of  school-yard  and  surrounding  country. 
Erosion,  sedimentation,  rapids,  waterfalls. 
Formation  of  streams;    their  channels. 
Study  of  pebbles :    history  as  shown  by  form  and 

material. 

Seventh  and  Eighth  Grades 
Heat :        evaporation,       condensation,      radiation, 

absorption,    reflection,    expansion,    contraction, 

temperature. 

DECEMBER,  JANUARY,  FEBRUARY 

All  Grades 
Effects  of  freezing  on  plants;    winter  condition  of 

plants. 

Protection  of  buds. 

Animal  movements  :   comparison  with  man. 
Skeleton  structure. 
Foods  and  their  relation  to  life. 
Prehension  and  digestion  of  food.  . 

Fourth,  Fifth,  and  Sixth  Grades 
Effects  of  freezing  and  thawing  upon  different  kinds 
of  ground  under  varying  conditions.     Effects 
of  frost  on  different  kinds  of  stones. 
Plant  and  animal  fossils. 


ON  EDUCATION  139 

Seventh  and  Eighth  Grades 

Levers  in  body  of  man  and  other  animals.  Equilibrium 
of  bodies. 

Heat :  sources  of,  capacity  for;  liquefaction,  con- 
duction; convection. 

Air  :   elasticity  of  pressure. 

The  pump  :   the  siphon. 

Liquids  :   capillarity,  buoyancy,  pressure. 

MARCH,  APRIL,  MAY,  JUNE 
All  Grades 

Observation  of  signs  of  renewed  life  in  plants. 

Trees  :   wood,  bark,  mode  of  branching,  buds. 

Germination  of  seeds  :  buds,  leaves,  flowers,  and 
fruit. 

Study  of  plants :  life,  structure,  function,  and 
comparison. 

Reappearance  of  birds. 

Insects  :   cocoons,  ants,  house-fly,  beetle. 

Renewal  of  animal  coverings. 

Respiration  and  circulation  hi  man  and  other  animals . 
Fourth,  Fifth,  and  Sixth  Grades 

Corals  and  plants,  as  geological  agencies. 

Rock  formations  :  dip,  strike,  etc. 

Wells  and  springs  :   position,  cause. 

Seventh  and  Eighth  Grades 

Light :   incident  and  reflected  rays,  refraction. 

Lenses. 

Properties  of  matter :  ductility,  malleability,  elas- 
ticity. 

Frictional  electricity. 

In  these  grades  nature  study  includes  physiology. 


140  MODERN   VIEWS 


CHAPTER  VIII 

VOCATIONAL    ASPECTS    OF    EDUCATION 

We  can  get  only  an  artificial  unity  so  long 
as  we  confine  OUT  gaze  to  the  school  system 
itself.  We  must  look  at  it  as  part  of  the 
large  whole  of  social  life. 

These  are  the  two  great  things  in  breaking 
down  isolation — to  have  the  child  come  to 
school  with  all  the  experience  he  has  got 
outside  the  school,  and  to  leave  it  with  some- 
thing to  be  immediately  used  in  his  everyday 
life. — DEWEY  :  School  and  Society. 

ON  every  hand  we  are  beginning  to  see  the 
utter  impracticability  of  any  school  which 
can  be  described  as  an  'artificial  institution/ 
Yet  these  are  the  words  used  by  one  of  our 
leading  authorities,  whose  life  has  brought 
him  into  the  closest  touch  with  school  work 
of  various  kinds :  and  they  cut  like  a  sword. 
A  similar  effect  remains  on  the  mind  after 
reading  words  based  upon  inquiries  into  the 
after-school  history  of  thousands  of  children 
who  went  to  work  in  the  mill,  which  appeared 
in  one  of  the  Board  of  Education  Special 
Reports  on  Educational  Subjects  (Vol.  8) : 


ON  EDUCATION  141 

'There  is  absolutely  no  correspondence  what- 
ever between  school  attainment  and  subse- 
quent skill  at  work,  or  even — so  far  was  the 
investigation  carried — between  school  records 
and  evidence  afterwards  given  of  general 
intelligence.'  Even  this  corresponds,  how- 
ever, with  what  one  may  hear  almost  at  any 
time  from  those  who  have  had  the  oppor- 
tunity of  observing  the  after-career  of  their 
former  school  fellows.  Yet  school  successes 
ought  not  to  end  in  career  failures.  Nor  does 
it  seem  fitting  that  the  school  should  send 
out  as  comparative  failures  those  who  immedi- 
ately pull  level  with  children  of  good  school 
record  and,  in  many  cases,  surpass  them. 

If  this  were  a  final  verdict  having  reference 
to  the  steady  average  relationship  between 
success  and  failure  in  school  and  in  life, 
the  school  and  its  education  would  be  put  at 
once  on  their  defence.  This  we  do  not  believe 
it  to  be.  Yet,  as  it  stands,  it  points  clearly  to 
the  duty  of  doing  something  more  than  we 
are  doing  for  boys  of  quick  wits  and  practical 
temperament  who  are  not  enamoured  of 
school  lessons  and  school  repression;  to  whom 
the  eight  years,  from  four  to  twelve,  of  an 
experience  which  does  not  fit  them,  seem 
long,  and  ten  years,  from  four  to  fourteen, 


142  MODERN   VIEWS 

may  well  seem  too  long.  In  all  likelihood 
in  helping  them  we  should  be  doing  something 
also  for  those  whom  school  hypnotises  into 
temporary  success  without  safeguarding  them 
against  ultimate  and  more  dreaded  failure. 

Something  may  be  done  by  giving  to 
portions  of  the  school  work  a  more  directly 
vocational  reference.  The  over-production  of 
penmen  and  the  under-production  of  work- 
men has  been  giving  rise  to  comment  in  all 
directions,  and  is  helping  to  keep  back  an 
enthusiasm  for  education  for  which,  on  the 
grounds  of  its  intrinsic  worth  and  public 
importance,  it  should  not  otherwise  look  in 
in  vain. 

1.  Preliminary  Vocational  Work  in  Con- 
nection with  the  Ordinary  Work  of  an  Element- 
ary School. — An  interesting  example  of  an 
elementary  school  which  furnishes  a  pre- 
vocational  outlook  and  training  is  the  Wood 
Close  Council  School,  Bethnal  Green,  London. 
The  published  report  of  a  Board  of  Education 
Inspector,  dealing  with  a  visit  paid  to  this 
school  in  December,  1911,  shows  the  kind  of 
use  which  an  ordinary  elementary  school 
(Standards  I.  to  VII.)  can  make  of  a  'work- 
room' or  '  practical  room/  without  any 
elaborateness  in  the  fitting  up.  The  boys' 


ON  EDUCATION  148 

department  has  six  classrooms  and  a  central 
hall,  with  a  workroom  on  the  fourth  floor,  i.e. 
on  a  level  with  the  roof  playground.  The 
workroom  is  used  by  one-half  of  a  class  at 
a  time;  the  other  half  of  the  class  being 
taught  by  a  student  teacher.  The  two  lowest 
standards  remaining  in  their  own  class- 
rooms, Standard  III.  uses  the  workroom  for 
clay  modelling,  Standard  IV.  for  cardboard 
work,  Standard  V.  for  lead-work,  Standards 
VI.  and  VII.  for  practical  science. 

A  good  deal  of  practical  work  is  also  done 
by  the  scholars  in  their  own  classrooms. 
In  Standard  I.,  for  example,  which  contains 
fifty-two  boys,  the  story  of  Robinson  Crusoe 
is  the  basis  for  the  handwork,  the  English, 
the  geography,  and  for  much  of  the  arithmetic 
and  drawing.  By  means  of  a  clay  model  of 
the  island,  knowledge  of  various  physical 
features  is  given.  The  boys  also  make  various 
models  in  paper  and  cardboard  of  boats, 
tents,  boxes,  and  other  objects  mentioned  in 
the  story.  With  wood  and  wire  they  make 
railings,  gates,  rafts;  and  in  chalk,  charcoal, 
and  crayons  they  sketch  their  conception  of 
the  scenes  which  have  specially  interested 
them.  These  forms  of  handwork  occupy  one 
and  a  half  hour  each  week.  Standard  II. 


144  MODERN  VIEWS 

works  in  paper.  Whilst  one-half  of  the  class 
is  doing  practical  work,  the  other  half  is 
engaged  either  in  arithmetic  or  in  silent  read- 
ing. And  so  on.  Standard  V.  takes  in  its 
own  classroom  a  preliminary  course  in 
weighing  and  measuring.  Each  child  has 
a  small  balance — about  twenty  of  those  in 
use  having  been  made  by  the  boys  at  the 
Manual  Instruction  Centre. 

The  special  feature  of  the  school  is  the  work- 
room. This  room  contains  four  strong  tables, 
six  feet  long  and  three  feet  wide,  at  each  of 
which  six  boys  can  work;  and  a  movable 
bench  seventeen  feet  long  on  one  side  of  the 
room.  Tools  and  simple  materials  are  pro- 
vided for  small  "repairs,  and  for  making 
simple  articles  required  for  use,  which  it  is 
not  worth  while  to  make  at  the  Manual 
Instruction  Centre;  and  the  room  is  fitted  with 
cupboards.  The  method  followed  is  to  allow 
the  boys  themselves  to  plan  and  to  experiment. 
In  cardboard  modelling,  for  example,  each 
boy  chooses  the  object  he  wishes  to  make,  and 
works  out  the  plan  for  himself,  cutting  it  out 
first  in  paper  for  the  master's  approval.  The 
teachers  seldom  give  help  till  a  boy  has  tried 
what  he  can  do  alone.  The  lead-work  in 
Standard  V.  is  an  experiment  in  a  material 


ON  EDUCATION  145 

chosen  as  intermediate  between  clay  and 
wood.  The  same  method  is  followed;  and 
it  is  found,  as  one  would  expect,  that  some 
boys  who  are  backward  in  their  other  school 
work  do  well  in  the  practical  room,  and  that 
all  boys  work  hard  and  earnestly.  Each 
section  below  Standard  VI.  uses  the  room  for 
one  period  of  an  hour  and  a  quarter  each 
week.  Each  section  of  Standards  VI.  and 
VII.  uses  the  room  for  two  such  periods  for 
practical  science.  The  work  in  this  room, 
it  will  be  seen,  is  in  addition  to  what  is  done 
in  the  classrooms  and  at  the  Woodwork 
Centre,  and  the  experiment  has  been  fully 
justified. 

To  take  an  American  illustration.  There  is 
an  interesting  country  elementary  school  in 
Massachusetts,  in  connection  with  a  State 
Normal  School,  which  has  introduced  indust- 
rial-social education  as  its  distinctive  feature. 
The  school  consists  of  a  little  over  two  hundred 
children  in  the  nine  grades  (this  being  the 
common  number  of  elementary  grades  in 
Massachusetts).  *  If  your  visit  were  to  be  made 
at  three  o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  you  would 
see  a  school  very  much  like  the  ordinary 
village  school,  housed  in  a  modern  brick 
building  of  six  rooms,  and  doing  the  usual 
M.V.E.  G 


146  MODERN  VIEWS 

schoolroom  work.  At  five  minutes  after  three 
you  would  see  a  transformation.  The  school 
becomes  a  manufactory,  in  which  each  child 
is  making  something.  In  the  first-year  room 
one  group  of  children  working  in  pairs  is 
engaged  in  weaving  woollen  rugs  for  the  doll's 
house;  some  are  braiding,  and  others  are 
sewing  their  braided  raphia  into  mats.  In 
the  second-year  room  a  group  of  the  children 
is  making  furniture  of  tag-board,  while  the 
other  division  of  the  class  has  gone  to  work 
in  the  garden.  In  the  third-year  room  the 
third-grade  children  are  making  raphia 
baskets;  while  the  fourth-grade  children  are 
out  working  in  their  garden.  Of  the  children 
of  the  grammar  grades  (i.e.  above  the  fourth), 
some  boys  have  gone  to  the  attic  to  make 
rattan  baskets;  one  group  of  girls  is  at  the 
dormitory  sewing  on  the  machine;  the  eighth- 
grade  boys  and  girls  are  at  work  in  their 
garden,  and  one  class  has  taken  an  expedition 
into  the  fields  to  study  the  birds.  The 
children  talk  quietly  together  as  they  work. 
They  go  and  help  themselves  to  material  as 
it  is  needed,  and  help  each  other  when  it 
seems  desirable.  (Often  a  child  proves  to  be 
a  more  helpful  instructor  than  the  teachers.) 
They  are  allowed  the  utmost  liberty  so  long 


ON  EDUCATION  147 

as  they  work  and  encourage  others  to  work. 
It  is  worth  going  far  to  see  the  new  spirit 
which  shines  in  their  faces  and  the  new 
attitude  which  has  been  developed  toward 
nearly  all  of  the  school  work.  This  is 
evident  throughout  the  day  and  in  all 
grades. ' 

The  point  of  these  illustrations  is  that,  if 
no  plans  for  direct  vocational  work  are  forth- 
coming, the  vocational  or  industrial  spirit 
may  be  imparted  to  the  school  in  some  way 
independently. 

A  strange  thing  which  may  be  noted  in 
passing  has  happened  in  our  own  country  in 
Reformatory  Schools  and  in  some  of  the 
Truant  and  Reform  Schools  of  America. 
Boys  have  been  *  committed'  to  these  schools, 
and  have  received  there  a  better  industrial 
equipment  than  they  would  have  had  if  they 
had  not  been  so  fortunate  as  to  disgrace  them- 
selves. No  one  would  grudge  these  boys  the 
benefit  they  have  got;  but  why  not  extend 
it  to  those  boys  who  have  not  disgraced 
themselves? 

2.  Vocational  Work  in  the  Higher  Classes 
of  the  Elementary  School,  Ages  Twelve  to 
Fourteen. — In  speaking  of  a  foundational 
primary  curriculum  up  to  twelve  years  of  age, 


148  MODERN  VIEWS 

the  last  two  years  of  elementary  school  life 
were  intentionally  held  over  for  further  con- 
sideration. There  is  a  real  problem  here. 
These  are  the  extremely  important  years  of 
early  adolescence.  Life  is  just  beginning  to 
grip,  and  in  not  a  few  cases  school  simul- 
taneously begins  to  lose  its  hold.  The  writer 
has  asked  a  class  of  students  for  how  many 
had  the  last  year  or  more  of  their  elementary 
schooling  had  real  value — i.e.  the  period 
spent  at  school  after  reaching  the  sixth 
standard,  as  bright  children  do  at  twelve. 
Fully  half  looked  back  upon  it  as  very  nearly 
lost  time.  These  were  young  men  training  to 
be  teachers.  In  addition  to  this,  there  are 
many  eager  conscientious  boys  in  whom  the 
work-impulse  wakes  up  at  twelve  years  of 
age,  precociously  stimulated  by  home  needs, 
it  may  be.  One  has  seen  such  losing  the  keen 
edge  of  their  boyish  manliness  during  the 
years  that  they  had  still  to  spend  in  school. 
Carlyle's  recipe,  'a  training  in  practicality,' 
would  have  fitted  either  case.  The  first :  for 
if  the  rising  teacher  is  not  so  trained,  how  is 
he  to  point  others  along  the  path?  A  virile 
attitude  towards  life  is  the  central  factor  in 
the  teacher's  effectual  personality.  And  if  the 
boy  with  the  work-impulse  strong  within  him 


ON  EDUCATION  149 

is  not  met  half-way,  something  falls  away 
from  him  never  quite  to  be  recovered.  Scot- 
land, therefore,  is  right,  and  other  elementary 
schools  are  right,  in  providing  supple- 
mentary elementary  school  courses  to 
meet  the  needs  of  the  last  two  years. 
There  are  clear  gains  from  this  practice 
— by-products,  but  deserving  notice — in 
at  least  two  directions.  One  of  these  is 
the  keenness  added  to  the  whole  of  the 
elementary  school  life  by  placing  within  it 
a  platform  to  be  ascended  by  ordinary  industry 
before  reaching  the  end  of  the  school  course 
(where  at  present  there  is  often  no  platform 
but  only  the  edge  of  a  terra  incognita). 
The  other  gain  is  the  value  which  the 
parent  will  see  in  the  child's  progress  to- 
wards, and  in  his  interest  and  success  in, 
the  more  practical  schooling  of  the  last 
two  years. 

Scotland  has  done  a  great  deal  for  thousands 
of  its  children  in  the  elementary  day  schools 
by  arranging,  for  scholars  over  twelve  years 
of  age,  supplementary  courses  containing 
industrial,  commercial,  and  household  manage- 
ment branches.  In  1910-1911  the  Scotch 
Education  Department  paid  its  higher  grants 
for  47,565  children  so  enrolled  in  two  thousand 


150  MODERN  VIEWS 

schools.  The  aim  of  the  work,  which  is  purely 
supplementary  to  that  of  the  elementary 
school,  is  to  produce  the  useful  citizen  .  .  . 
fit  in  body  and  alert  in  mind,  prepared  for  the 
'rational  enjoyment  of  his  leisure  time/  as 
well  as  for  'earning  his  living.'  In  order  to 
be  admitted  to  the  course  scholars  must  have 
spent  six  months  in  the  highest  class  of  the 
school,  and  be  certified  by  the  teacher  of  this 
class  and  the  head  master  of  the  school  as 
proficient  in  their  work.  They  are  then 
presented  to  the  inspector  for  a  'qualifying 
examination*  (not  necessarily  an  individual 
examination).  After  one  full  year  in  a  supple- 
mentary course  a  pupil  who  has  acquitted 
himself  well,  and  who  is  over  fourteen  years 
of  age,  may  receive  a  certificate  of  merit, 
issued  by  the  managers,  and  with  the  sanction 
of  the  Department  through  one  of  its 
Inspectors  (Scotch  Code,  Art.  29).  The  con- 
ditions of  award  are  admirable.  They  secure 
industry  on  the  part  of  the  pupil,  who  is 
required  to  keep  his  own  record  of  the  work 
he  has  done  (an  excellent  feature),  and  to 
present  it,  whenever  called  upon,  to  the 
Inspector  for  verification.  This  record,  sup- 
ported by  the  class-teacher's  testimony  and 
the  head  master's  recommendation,  is  the 


ON  EDUCATION 


151 


basis  of  certification.  By  this  plan  a  form  of 
school-leaving  certificate  is  provided  which 
avoids  the  evils  which  attend  preparation 
for  a  leaving  examination.  The  vocational 
feature  is  also  sufficiently  marked  for  the 
pupil  to  feel  that  a  real  change  has  been  made 
in  his  work,  one  which  gives  him  a  truer 
liking  for  school  and  a  more  decided  outlook 
upon  life. 

The  following  time-table,  which  is  taken 
from  the  annual  report  of  the  School  Board  of 
Glasgow  for  1910-1911,  shows  the  number  of 
hours  devoted  to  each  subject : — 

GIRLS'  SUPPLEMENTARY  COURSE 


English 
Arithmetic 
Housekeeping    . 
Physical  Training 
Singing      . 


9     hours 

5 

9 

1J       „ 


Total  per  week         .     25  hours. 
BOYS'  SUPPLEMENTARY  (INDUSTRIAL  COURSE) 

9    hours. 


English     . 
Arithmetic 

Woodwork  and  Drawing 
Physical  Training 
Singing 
To  be  allocated  to  Ordinary 
Subjects      .         • 


8 
5 


Total  per  week      .    25  hours. 


152  MODERN  VIEWS 

A  new  school  of  an  interesting  kind  is  being 
opened  at  Stockport.  It  has  a  workroom 
somewhat  on  the  lines  of  the  Bethnal  Green 
School,  though  it  aims  to  keep  children  from 
the  ages  of  twelve  to  fifteen.  This  school 
aims  to  combine  the  cheapness  of  fitting  and 
apparatus  of  the  Bethnal  Green  School  with 
the  curriculum  of  a  pre-trade  school. l  Instead 
of  being  fitted  up  with  gas  engine  and  a 
special  room  for  metal  work,  incorporating 
many  of  the  details  of  the  best  workshops 
in  the  country,  the  Stockport  plan  simplifies 
the  tools  and  machinery  in  order  to  give  the 
boys  as  sure  a  command  of  the  processes  as 
possible.  The  boy  of  ten  who  grew  weary  of 
his  automatic  toys,  and  said  that  he  'wanted 
toys  that  he  could  play  with,  not  toys  that 
played  with  him,'  may  well  have  his  counter- 
part in  the  boy  of  fourteen  who  both  needs  and 

1  This  account  of  the  school  represents  the  views  of  its 
founders,  having  been  kindly  supplied  by  the  secretary 
to  the  Education  Committee.  The  school  is  now  opened, 
and  some  of  the  features  are  already  incorporated.  As 
much  use  as  possible  is  made  of  the  practical  rooms.  An 
interesting  feature,  too,  is  in  connection  with  the  domestic 
courses.  There  is  a  model  house  within  the  school  build- 
ings, in  which  girls  who  have  had  at  least  one  course  in 
laundry  and  in  cookery  and  a  few  preparatory  lessons 
spend,  in  small  groups,  four  days  a  week  for  six  weeks  in 
real  housekeeping  under  a  special  mistress. — See  Appendix. 


ON  EDUCATION  153 

prefers  tools  that  he  can  use,  not  machinery 
which  he  must  learn  to  obey.  A  room  for 
woodwork  and  metal-work  is  to  be  provided. 
But  one  of  the  valuable  features  of  the  Stock- 
port  plan,  borrowed  from  the  Bethnal  Green 
School,  is  a  'general  utility'  room,  to  which  the 
boys  shall  have  as  frequent  and  as  free  an 
access  as  possible.  In  it  they  will  do  a  great 
part  of  their  work  in  practical  mathematics, 
drawing,  and  science.  Cupboards  will  contain 
a  fair  supply  of  balances  and  of  chemical 
apparatus,  the  body  of  the  room  being  occu- 
pied by  some  six  'general  utility*  benches, 
each  of  which  will  accommodate  six  or  eight 
boys  working  at  the  same  subject. 

An  elementary  school  of  this  type,  with  its 
'pre-trade'  school  at  the  top,  gives  boys  a 
changed  outlook  from  the  moment  they 
enter  the  elementary  school.  It  is  a  'bucking- 
up'  device,  the  effects  of  which  will  be  felt 
by  the  scholars  and,  one  hopes,  rejoiced  over 
by  their  parents  throughout  the  school  course. 
This  point  is  of  importance  even  from  the 
vocational  point  of  view;  for  anything  tending 
to  listlessness  and  to  indifference  to  work  is 
anti-vocational.  (The  Stockport  Education 
Committee  has  launched  its  scheme  partly 
on  the  strength  of  observations  which  show 


154  MODERN  VIEWS 

that  there  has  been  a  striking  retardation 
of  a  large  percentage  of  scholars  in  their 
progress  through  the  standards  since  the  days 
of  individual  examination  and  payment  by 
results.  Whereas  in  the  old  days,  say,  a 
thousand  scholars  of  a  given  school  standing 
were  worked  up  to  a  point  at  which  practically 
all  were  allowed  to  pass  up  into  the  grade 
next  above,  now  they  find  in  the  third  and 
fourth  grades  not  a  thousand  but  fourteen 
hundred,  and  in  the  fifth  and  sixth  grades  not 
a  thousand  but  only  six  hundred.  The  sixty 
per  cent,  who  keep  moving  up  are  probably 
more  intelligent  than  any  corresponding  sixty 
under  the  former  system,  but  forty  per  cent, 
are  too  many  to  be  allowed  to  fall  behind  and 
to  remain  there.  This  subject  of  retardation 
is  one  of  the  burning  questions  to-day  amongst 
American  educators  also).  Both  boys  and 
girls  are  to  participate  in  the  advantage  of 
the  pre- trade  school.  The  course  for  boys 
is  to  be  a  simplification  of  Trade  Evening 
School  courses,  and  planned  for  three  years, 
twelve  to  fifteen.  The  girls  will  receive  a 
training  in  domestic  subjects  of  all  kinds. 

The  elementary  school  has,  therefore,  an 
interest  in  the  question  of  vocational  educa- 
tion. Many  head  teachers  are  alive  to  this, 


ON  EDUCATION  155 

both  in  town  and  country.  But  what  they 
do,  they  do  on  their  own  initiative.  A  head 
master,  for  example,  converts  part  of  his  own 
garden  into  a  school  garden,  and  connects  the 
scholars'  work  in  it  with  a  well-planned 
scheme  of  observational  nature  study.  At 
first,  the  parents — many  of  them  gardeners,  or 
interested  in  village  occupations — said  :  *  We 
send  the  children  to  school  to  learn,  not  to 
work.'  They  have  since  discovered  that  work- 
ing of  this  kind  is  learning;  besides  which, 
more  than  one  lad  has  found  employment  and 
is  doing  well  at  a  horticulturist's  in  the  neigh- 
bourhood. In  another  agricultural  county,  by 
the  foresight  of  the  head  master,  a  plot  of 
land  of  considerable  size  has  been  secured  at 
only  a  nominal  rent.  In  a  single  boy's  plot  of 
forty  square  yards — a  liberal  allowance  for 
one  boy,  but  the  school  was  fortunately 
placed — the  writer  saw  rows  of  spring  cabbage, 
and  pease,  radishes,  and  parsley  coming  up;  a 
portion  being  at  the  same  time  under  seed. 
In  this  school  of  150  children,  twenty-six 
boys  in  the  highest  class  were  getting  an 
education  in  garden  and  field  work,  bringing 
their  tools  from  home  and  working  after 
school  hours  in  the  evening,  some  of  the 
boys  making  3s.  or  4s.  out  of  a  year's  crop* 


15b  MODERN  VIEWS 

Proportion  sums  worked  out  with  this  as 
a  basis  may  help  to  show  the  lads  that  there 
is  'money'  in  the  land,  even  when  a  rent  is 
paid.  Some  rural  head  mistresses  take  their 
part  in  this  good  work,  though  in  slightly 
different  ways.  Town  teachers  are  equally 
keen  in  caring  for  their  scholars'  success  in 
life  (though  as  yet  vocational  courses  of  any 
kind  are  rare).  No  amount  of  external  regula- 
tion, or  lack  of  external  stimulus,  can  curb 
spirit  and  individuality.  That  is  why  con- 
siderable freedom  is  at  last  being  given  to  the 
schools.  It  has  been  earned.  That  also  is  one 
great  reason  why  Britain  still  holds  her  own 
in  the  markets  of  the  world. 

Excellent  as  individual  efforts  are,  however, 
they  only  very  partially  supply  a  need  which 
has  become  increasingly  marked  of  late  owing 
to  the  very  general  abandonment  of  the 
apprenticeship  system  by  employers.  A  boy's 
chance  of  a  vocational  outlook  from  his 
school — surely  his  due  if  he  stays  till  he  is 
between  fourteen  and  fifteen — depends  either 
upon  a  specially  circumstanced,  or  specially 
inspired  teacher,  as  in  England,  or  comes  as 
a  reward,  as  in  Scotland.  Should  we  not  be 
approaching  the  matter  more  frankly  if  we 
said  that  the  opportunity  should  be  his  by 


ON  EDUCATION  157 

right?  All  that  is  said  about  the  advantages  of 
abroad  liberal  education  is  sound  in  conception 
and  spirit — nor  need  such  education  be  in 
any  degree  sacrificed,  but  the  best  education 
does  not  amount  to  much  in  a  boy's  after- 
career  if  with  it  he  cannot  earn  bread  and 
cheese.  Some  of  us  are  'brands  snatched 
from  the  burning '  in  this  matter;  and  there  are 
many  brands  that  remain  in  the  fire.  School 
owes  a  boy  who  attends  it  a  fair  chance  in 
life.  And  the  average  boy  is  far  more  likely 
to  be  well-disposed  towards  learning  for  its 
own  sake  if  he  can  see  just  cause  for  thinking 
that  the  school  cares  for  him  for  his  own 
sake.  A  pre-trade  schooling,  as  an  option 
from  twelve  years  of  age,  or  as  a  supple- 
mentary elementary  course,  as  a  reward 
earned  between  twelve  and  thirteen,  is 
good.  But,  as  in  so  many  other  things, 
perhaps  those  that  miss  it  need  it  most. 
To  give  every  child  a  chance  in  life,  and  to 
make  him  of  value  to  his  country,  are  the 
very  justification  of  the  school.  Fit  and 
unfit  alike  have  to  survive,  and  the  purpose  of 
the  school  is  to  give  to  each  a  survival-value. 
Fundamentally  our  aim  is  practical.  Learn- 
ing will  continue  to  have  its  cloisters  ;  indeed, 
it  is  often  from  the  cloister  that  the  voices 


158  MODERN   VIEWS 

have  come  that  preach  crusades.  Yet  the  spirit 
of  the  school  is  not  cloistral,  but  chivalric. 
The  ends  it  has  in  view  are  power  in  work, 
ideals  of  citizenship,  and  virile  personality. 

3.  Direct  Vocational  Education  as  a  Sequel 
to  the  Work  of  the  Elementary  School. — When 
speaking  of  the  awarding  of  scholarships  from 
elementary  schools  one  suggested  reform  was 
noted,  namely,  that  which  would  replace  the 
examining  attitude,  What  have  you  learnt? 
by,  What  use  can  you  make  of  what  you 
know?  Practical  scholarships,  no  less  for 
girls  than  for  boys,  have  also  been  advocated. 
A  few  centres  have  provided  scholarships  of 
this  kind.  London  offers  both  for  boys  and 
girls  maintenance  scholarships  at  the  trade 
schools  and  technical  institutes.  Boys  over 
twelve,  who  have  passed  the  Sixth  Standard, 
and  who  intend  to  take  up  a  handicraft  trade, 
may  gain  scholarships  at  a  Preparatory  Trade 
School,  tenable  between  the  ages  of  thirteen 
and  sixteen,  of  the  value  of  £6,  with  free 
tuition  for  the  first  two  years,  and  £15  with 
free  tuition  for  the  third  year.  Boys  over 
fourteen  may  have  free  tuition,  with  £10  for 
a  first  year  and  £15  for  a  second  year  at 
a  Trade  and  Craft  School.  From  the  Trade 
and  Craft  School  a  boy  will  go  straight  to 


ON  EDUCATION  159 

the  workshop,  unless  he  has  special  ability, 
and  can  go  through  a  full  technology  course 
with  the  hope  of  adequate  reward  at  the 
end.  Girls,  similarly,  may  enter  a  trade 
school  at  the  close  of  their  elementary  school 
course  with  a  scholarship  covering  the  fees, 
and  a  maintenance  grant  of  from  £8  to  £12. 
The  work  is  in  some  instances  supervised  by 
an  advisory  committee  of  trade  experts,  who 
both  give  advice  in  respect  of  it  and  interest 
themselves  in  finding  situations  for  the  pupils. 
'Many  of  them,'  says  the  head  of  the  Borough 
Polytechnic  Institute,  'have  found  suitable 
employment  and  have  made  excellent  starts.' 
The  following  table  shows  the  nature  of 
the  work  done  at  the  Shoreditch  Technical 
Day  School  (for  boys  who  have  passed  the 
Sixth  Standard  and  are  between  twelve  and 
thirteen  at  the  time  of  their  admission).  It 
is  a  school  which  definitely  prepares  for 
furniture  and  cabinet  making,  and  other  wood- 
working trades  : — 

FIRST     SECOND      THIRD 
YEAR        YEAR         YEAR 

English  Subjects                       .     4£  3  1J 

Art  Drawing  and  Modelling    .6  4J  3 

Mathematics          .         .          .6  3  lj 

Science  and  Technical  Lectures     6  4  J  4  J 

Workshop  and  Drawing  Office     7£  15  194 

(Including  six  hours  Metal  Work.) 


160  MODERN  VIEWS 

The  Borough  Polytechnic  Institute  Day 
School  prepares  principally  for  engineering 
and  various  metal-working  trades.  Courses 
are  provided  in  chemistry,  physics,  practical 
geometry,  machine  drawing,  applied 
mechanics,  art  drawing,  French,  German, 
Spanish,  metal-work,  woodwork,  and  physical 
training.  The  school  is  founded  for  the  pur- 
pose of  giving  a  sound  preparatory  training, 
whereby  London  boys  will  have  better  chances 
of  becoming  skilled  workers  than  they  have 
hitherto  had.  It  is  felt  that  whilst  much 
attention  has  been  paid  to  the  preparation 
of  boys  for  various  clerical  occupations  and 
for  the  Civil  Service  and  other  similar  examina- 
tions, the  adequate  training  of  bright  boys 
who  would  be  successful  in  various  trades  has 
been  almost  entirely  neglected;  and,  further, 
that,  owing  to  modern  methods  of  manufac- 
ture, with  the  consequent  narrow  specialisa- 
tion, there  is  now  greater  need  than  formerly 
for  the  preparation  of  boys  for  trades  on 
a  broad  basis,  which  will  enable  them  to 
adapt  themselves  to  changing  conditions  of 
employment  and  compete  successfully  in  the 
industrial  world.  Boys  are  trained,  therefore, 
not  to  work  mechanically,  but  to  think  for 
themselves,  in  the  hope  that  they  will  thus 


ON  EDUCATION  161 

be  fitted  to  take  up  responsible  positions  later 
in  life.  During  the  first  year  the  course  of 
instruction  is  the  same  for  all  boys.  The 
subjects  and  the  number  of  hours  devoted 
to  each  per  week  are  as  follows  : — 

Mathematics  .         .     5        Literary  Subjects  .  7£ 

Science .         .         .3        Art  Drawing  .  .  1J 

Workshop  Practice       7        Physical  Exercises  .  1 J 

Geometry  and  Mechanical  Drawing          .  .  4£ 

During  the  second  and  third  years,  for 
those  boys  who  decide  to  enter  the  engineer- 
ing trade  or  any  branch  of  metal-work,  the 
subjects  and  hours  are  as  follows  : — 

SECOND  YEAR.    THIRD  YEAR. 

Mathematics  5  5 


Literary  Subjects  . 
Science .  .  . 
Drawing 

Workshop  Practice 
Physical  Exercises  . 


7  7 

5i  4J 

44  5 

6i  7 


Diplomas  are  awarded  to  boys  who  satisfac- 
torily complete  the  three  years'  course  and 
pass  an  examination. 

Leeds,  Liverpool,  and  Bootle,  also,  have 
started  Trade  Schools  of  one  kind  or  other. 
Now  that  apprenticeship  has  been  set  aside 
by  a  large  number  of  firms  which  none  the 
less  require  a  constant  fresh  supply  of  workers 
in  skilled  industry,  the  need  has  clearly 


162  MODERN  VIEWS 

arisen  that  a  'supplementary  education, 
normal  and  open  to  every  child  who  in- 
tends to  take  up  manual  labour,'  shall  be 
'put  somehow  into  the  English  system  of 
education.' 

To  compare  notes  for  a  moment  with  what 
is  being  done  in  Germany.  Munich,  under 
the  lead  of  Dr  Kerschensteiner,  whose  name 
is  now  familiar  in  this  country,  has  the  reputa- 
tion of  possessing  the  most  complete  system 
of  trade  schools  in  the  world.  The  keystone 
of  the  system  is  the  compulsory  day  school 
for  the  apprentice,  the  aims  of  which  are 
both  industrial  and  civic.  Each  trade,  more- 
over, has  its  economic  and  commercial  aspects, 
and  these  are  studied.  Employers  are  bound 
by  law  to  allow  their  apprentices  to  attend 
these  schools  for  from  six  to  ten  hours  a  week. 
But  this  aspect  of  the  question  is  tactfully 
handled.  Some  trades,  for  example,  are  slack 
during  the  winter  months.  In  such  cases  the 
boys  may  attend  for  three  hours  during  the 
summer  and  fourteen  hours  during  the  winter. 
The  courses  cover  the  whole  period  of  appren- 
ticeship, and  generally  fall  between  the  ages 
of  fourteen  and  eighteen.  Even  though  in 
some  cases  the  apprentices  forfeit  their  pay 
for  the  hours  they  attend  the  schools,  and 


ON  EDUCATION  163 

do  so  for  three  or  four  years,  it  is  found  that 
good  Continuation  Courses  of  this  kind  attract 
rather  than  repel.  For  some  apprentices, 
who  come  from  other  towns  to  the  Munich 
classes,  their  employers  pay  the  cost  of 
travelling. 

There  are  no  compulsory  classes  at  Munich 
after  7  p.m.,  the  available  hours  being  7  to 
9  a.m.  and  1  to  7  p.m.  (In  Bavaria  generally, 
however,  the  instruction  of  apprentices  is  in 
the  evenings  and  on  Sundays.)  All  take 
courses  in  commercial  correspondence,  book- 
keeping, and  arithmetic,  German  literature, 
civics  and  hygiene,  religious  instruction,  along 
with  instruction  in  drawing,  the  use  of  tools 
and  machinery,  and  practical  work  adapted 
to  each  apprentice's  own  trade.  There  are 
courses  for  cabinet-makers  (four  years,  nine 
hours  a  week),  butchers  (five  years),  for 
bookbinders  (three  years),  tailors  (four  years), 
for  messenger  boys,  wagoners  and  drivers, 
and  for  barbers  and  wigmakers.  All  appren- 
tices attend  the  schools  free  of  charge.  Munich 
has  also  commercial  schools  and  continuation 
schools  for  girls  and  women.  All  girls  who 
are  not  attending  a  secondary  school  (even 
those  in  domestic  service)  must  attend  a  con- 
tinuation course. 


164  MODERN  VIEWS 

4.  Vocational  Aspects  of  Secondary  School 
Education. — Few  would  challenge  the  opinion 
that  before  a  boy  leaves  a  secondary  school 
he  should  have  some  outlook  towards  a 
career.  If  he  is  going  to  the  university  his 
course  there  will  gain,  not  lose,  by  his  having 
some  vocation  in  view  for  which  he  is  fitting 
himself.  A  school  stands  in  a  twofold  relation 
to  the  practical  life  of  those  it  educates.  It 
is  always  part  of  the  duty  of  the  school  to 
appeal  to  and  strengthen  the  scholar's  prac- 
tical impulses.  'Unless  the  world  is  come  to 
a  conclusion  that  is  perfectly  frightful,' 
Carlyle  said  in  his  address  as  Lord  Rector  of 
Edinburgh  University;  he  foresaw  that  there 
must  be  some  kind  of  scheme  of  education 
that  should  be  'a  training  in  practicality  at 
every  turn.*  And  further,  in  addition  to 
giving  this  general  training,  the  school  should 
lay  itself  out  to  discover  the  boy's  individual 
bent,  and  do  something  to  assist  him  in 
specific  ways  both  in  the  choice  of  a  career 
and  in  his  subsequent  success  in  that 
career. 

In  America  much  vocational  work  is  done 
in  the  High  Schools.  In  the  High  School  at 
New  Haven,  Connecticut,  which  the  writer 
visited  in  1911,  there  are  no  fewer  than  eight 


ON  EDUCATION  165 

courses,  each  with  a  different  vocational  aim. 
These  are  called  college  preparatory,  scientific, 
academic,  commercial,  manual  scientific,  boys' 
manual,  girls'  manual,  girls'  scientific.  The 
last  four  are  taken  in  a  department  of  the 
school  which  is  really  a  Manual  Training 
High  School. 

The  work  done  in  the  workshops  attached 
to  some  of  the  Manual  Training  and  other 
High  Schools  in  America,  although  taken 
along  with  other  school  work,  and  as  part  of 
the  general  course,  has  long  been  so  good  as 
to  compare  not  unfavourably  with  that  of 
many  Technical  Schools.  As  proof  of  this, 
and  in  justification  of  the  educational  pro- 
cedure which  rendered  such  a  result  possible, 
the  case  of  the  Washington  High  Schools  may 
be  quoted.  At  a  time  when  great  pressure 
was  put  upon  certain  workshops  owing  to 
the  Spanish  War,  youths  in  the  third  and 
fourth  year  of  their  course  were  drafted  off 
into  the  industrial  workshops,  and  soon 
equalled  the  workshop  mechanics  in  their 
earnings.  The  educational  methods  which 
rendered  this  possible  apply  with  great  force 
at  the  present  moment,  when  the  introduction 
of  educational  handwork  throughout  the 
whole  of  the  course  in  publicly-provided 


166  MODERN  VIEWS 

schools  is  in  contemplation.  The  superin- 
tendent, at  the  time  of  the  writer's  visit  in 
1900  (a  man  of  great  ability,  who  had  held 
the  position  for  many  years),  attributed  the 
success  of  these  boys  (who  were,  as  just  said, 
taking  a  full  school  course,  of  which  the  shop- 
work  was  only  one  branch)  to  the  fact  that 
there  was  handwork  in  that  city  throughout 
all  the  school  years  from  the  kindergarten  to 
the  close  of  the  High  School  period.  'To 
superimpose  manual  training  in  the  upper 
grades  without  previous  hand-training  is 
loss  of  time,  money,  and  power/  Boys  in 
their  third  year  in  the  High  School  work  to 
the  minutest  fraction  of  an  inch.  This  they 
'could  not  do  if  the  eight-year-old  boy  had 
not  been  trained  to  think  through  his 
fingers/ 

With  regard  to  British  Secondary  Schools, 
little  need  be  added  to  what  has  been  said  in 
the  previous  chapter  on  the  efficiency-value 
of  secondary  school  studies.  Some  of  our 
greater  schools  are  sustaining  the  vocational 
outlook,  and  most  have  now  the  necessary 
equipment.  But  there  is  one  feature  of  the 
preparation  of  the  public  school  which  is 
specifically  vocational  in  spirit  and  yet  which 
cannot  be  right.  It  is  the  segregation  in  some 


ON  EDUCATION  167 

of  these  schools  of  the  clever  boys  who  are 
candidates  for  scholarly  distinction.  This 
has  even  been  spoken  of  as  one  of  the  privileges 
of  the  scholarship  winner,  that  he  is  thrown 
into  the  association  of  other  clever  boys  of 
studious  habits.  But  it  really  amounts  to 
setting  up  an  'intellectual  compartment* 
within  the  school;  and  tends,  in  the  words  of 
one  of  our  secondary  school  leaders,  to  treat 
scholarship  as 'a  sort  of  exotic  bloom  that  can 
only  be  reared  in  a  hothouse.'  It  is  a  doubtful 
compliment  to  the  boys  so  treated,  and 
a  still  more  doubtful  benefit.  If  scholarship 
cannot  rub  shoulders  with  the  rest  of  the 
world,  the  scholar  loses  and  the  world  does 
not  gain.  It  seems  fair  to  say  that  the  pride 
of  Eton  or  Winchester  in  its  university  suc- 
cesses must  submit  to  a  heavy  discount  in 
view  of  the  fact  that  they  represent  an  intel- 
lectual life  in  which,  by  direct  organisation, 
the  school  as  a  whole  is  not  asked  to  share. 
Rugby  is  an  example  of  a  school  which  has 
chosen  the  better  way  'to  the  gain/  it  is 
believed,  'of  the  Rugby  scholars,  as  well  as 
to  the  gain  of  the  school  as  a  whole/  True 
it  may  be  that  the  Oxford  and  Cambridge 
dons  are  in  the  vast  majority  of  cases  ex- 
Public  School  boys;  that  is,  that,  by  selecting 


168  MODERN  VIEWS 

some  of  the  brightest  intellects  of  British 
boyhood,  upon  whose  preparatory  training 
an  immense  amount  of  care  has  been  ex- 
pended, some  great  scholars  are  produced 
by  the  system.  But  a  school  attains 
its  truest  success  only  when  it  inter- 
weaves intellectual  and  practical  equip- 
ment. 

The  question  of  the  utilisation  of  the  land, 
and  of  agriculture  as  a  national  industry,  is 
occupying  a  large  place  in  the  public  mind  at 
the  present  moment.  There  is  an  educational 
side  also  to  this  question.  The  Board  of 
Agriculture  is  doing  good  work  in  various 
ways.  It  is  financially  assisting  universities 
and  colleges  in  England  and  Wales  to  supply 
technical  advice  to  farmers,  and  to  provide  for 
the  investigations  of  local  agricultural  prob- 
lems. The  Board  also  publishes  a  remarkably 
varied  series  of  leaflets  and  reports  which  are 
of  much  interest  and  value  to  teachers,  and 
even  to  the  general  reader,  as  well  as  to  the 
agriculturist.  But  from  the  point  of  view  of 
the  school,  as  yet  little  or  nothing  is  done  in 
a  public  way  to  assist  the  boy  who  would,  if 
the  chance  were  offered  him,  turn  to  agri- 
culture. 

Mr  J.  L.  Paton  has  quite  recently  pointed 


ON  EDUCATION  169 

to  this  as  a  very  distinct  gap  in  our 
scholarship  system.  He  points  out  that 
there  are  many  causes  conspiring  at  the 
present  time  to  draw  boys  and  girls 
from  office  work  and  from  other  branches 
of  so-called  head  work  towards  work  on 
the  land  and  with  the  hand.  There  is  the 
Boy  Scout  movement,  with  all  the  manual 
work  it  teaches  (a  Boy  Scouts'  farm,  of 
course,  exists  already  in  Essex) ;  there  is 
the  development  of  small  holdings,  and 
the  small  proprietor  movement ;  there  is 
the  increase  of  population  in  rural  areas. 
These  and  other  causes  are  fortunately 
at  work  to  check  the  rush  of  young 
people  to  office  stools  and  to  careers  of 
mere  scholastic  attainment.  But  there  is 
no  outlet  offered  in  our  scholarship  schemes 
for  these  boys  and  girls  drawn  towards 
work  on  the  land.  Good  agricultural  schools 
and  colleges  do  exist,  but  there  is  no  bridge 
to  them  for  the  secondary  school  boy  or  girl 
as  there  is  to  the  universities  and  places  of 
academic  learning.  Zeal  for  land  work,  which 
exists  more  often  in  boys  and  girls  than  is 
thought,  might,  as  Mr  Paton  justly  thinks, 
with  advantage  be  encouraged  by  the  granting 
of  scholarships.  Nor  is  keenness  for  work  on 

M.V.E.  II 


170  MODERN   VIEWS 

the  land  likely  to  be  misdirected.  There  are 
still  farming  districts — the  bulk  of  this  book 
was  written  in  one  of  them — where  fortunes 
of  many  thousands  of  pounds  are  being  made 
by  skilful  farming. 

Rightly  viewed,  the  vocational  aspects  of 
education  have  something  more  than  a  purely 
commercial  reference.  The  word  itself  is 
suggestive.  It  contains  the  root-idea  of 
'call'  and  ca  calling.'  Educationally,  this 
means  that  life  and  the  world's  work  call  to 
the  boy;  and  that  he  has  in  almost  every  case 
both  the  power  and  the  will  to  respond. 
Chivalrous  impulses  carry  men  and  women 
through  much  of  life's  drudgery.  And  the 
first  stirring  of  these  impulses  is  to  be  found 
in  young  hearts.  Vocational  education  will 
invite  them,  not  as  tools  of  the  world's 
labour,  but  as  each  a  power  in  the  world's 
work;  each  willing  'to  face  life  at  last,  to 
look  into  the  bright  face  of  Danger,'  or  in 
any  case  to  take  the  brunt  of  things  and  face 
responsibility. 

The  nineteenth  century  did  well  in  the  midst 
of  its  industrialism  to  hold  up  the  ideal  of 
education  as  a  broad  and  liberal  training. 
All  this  the  twentieth  century  can  carry 


ON  EDUCATION  171 

forward.  We  may  adopt,  in  our  thought 
alike  for  the  individual  and  for  the 
common  life,  all  that  is  wise  and  needful 
In  the  way  of  vocational  education,  and 
yet  be  learning  'that  it  is  ultimately 
not  the  corn  raised  by  the  man  which 
matters,  but  the  man  fashioned  by  raising 
the  corn/ 


172  MODERN  VIEWS 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE   MONTESSORI   SPIRIT 

The  child  who  left  the  game  in  his 
eagerness  for  knowledge  has  revealed  him- 
self as  a  true  son  of  that  humanity  which 
has  been  through  the  centuries  the  creator 
of  scientific  and  civil  progress. — Dr  MARIA 
MONTESSORI,  in  The  Montessori  Method. 
(Eng.  trans.) 

1.  A  GLANCE  must  be  given  at  the  most 
recent  of  the  great  new  conceptions  and 
developments  in  education,  one  which  has 
aroused  attention  of  educators  in  both  Europe 
and  America.  It  is  associated  with  the  name 
of  Dr  Maria  Montessori,  an  Italian  doctor  of 
medicine.  She  has  long  been  interested  in 
the  study  of  children,  and  has  brought  to 
bear  upon  the  problems  of  education  (in  the 
first  instance,  the  education  of  deficient 
children)  the  result  of  many  years  study  of 
biology  and  physiology.  Dr  Montessori  com- 
menced her  educational  experiments  with 
children  from  the  asylums,  and  with  astonish- 
ing results.  Her  scholars  proved  themselves 
able  to  hold  their  own  in  school  examinations 


ON  EDUCATION  173 

with  normal  children  from  the  public  schools. 
People  were  amazed  at  these  almost  miracu- 
lous results;  but  the  great  teacher  herself 
says  :  *  I  was  searching  for  the  reasons  which 
could  keep  the  happy,  healthy  children  of 
the  common  schools  on  so  low  a  place  that 
they  could  be  equalled  in  tests  of  intelligence 
by  my  unfortunate  pupils ! ' 

She  accordingly  sought  an  opportunity  to 
test  her  methods  with  normal  children.  The 
success  in  some  of  the  Montessori  schools 
has  been  almost  as  striking  as  were  the  results 
with  the  defective  children,  and  a  very  wide- 
spread interest  has  been  aroused.  The  ten- 
dency throughout  the  country  has  been  to 
speak  of  the  adoption  of  the  'methods'  with 
a  wise  caution;  but  the  educational  spirit 
behind  the  methods  and  their  marked  success 
in  certain  cases  have  ensured  for  them  a  study 
that  will  be  sustained,  and  a  discussion  which 
will  long  find  place  and  welcome  in  educa- 
tional debate.  No  attempt  to  describe  the 
procedure  in  the  Montessori  schools  can  be 
made  in  the  course  of  a  few  paragraphs.  But 
at  the  heart  of  the  movement  is  an  almost 
inspired  faith  in  the  life-force  and  individual 
power  of  each  child.  That  is  the  Montessori 
spirit. 


174  MODERN   VIEWS 

(a)  In  Every  Possible  Way  the  Child  is 
Allowed  to  Live  His  Own  Life.  He  receives 
comparatively  little  guidance  from  the  school 
directors.  The  apparatus  is  provided;  the 
directress  is  present  and  participates  in  the 
children's  life;  but  the  'lessons'  are  indi- 
vidual, and  brevity  is  one  of  their  chief 
characteristics.  In  this  way  collective  lessons 
have  been  almost  abolished;  for  the  small 
children  are  free,  and  are  not  obliged  to 
remain  in  their  places  quiet  and  ready  to 
listen  to  the  teacher,  or  to  watch  what  she  is 
doing. 

At  once  we  realise  that  we  are  face  to  face 
not  only  with  an  almost  new  conception  of 
teaching,  but  also  with  a  special  set  of  con- 
ditions. To  attempt  this  in  an  ordinary 
English  Infants'  Department  would  be  to 
court  failure.  'Classes' —  if  they  can  be  so 
called  in  the  Montessori  system — must  be 
limited  to  about  twenty  children;  there  must 
be  plenty  of  space  in  which  the  children  may 
move  freely  and  may  group  and  re-group 
themselves  (certainly  not  less  than  that  which 
is  at  present  allowed  for  fifty  or  sixty  children); 
and  the  furniture  must  be  as  light  as  possible. 
These  are  only  the  outworks  of  the  method, 
but  they  are  clearly  implied  in  it. 


ON  EDUCATION  175 

(b)  The  Child,  thus  Liberated,  Learns  by 
a  Method  of  Direct  Observation.  For  instance, 
he  can  perceive  a  square  tablet  and  fit  it  into 
its  corresponding  space  as  an  inset;  that  is, 
he  can  compare  the  square  form  of  the  tablet 
with  the  similar  form  of  the  sunk  space  into 
which  it  fits.  His  'lesson'  is  comprised  in 
the  sentence  from  the  teacher :  '  This  is 
a  square.'  The  rest  is  done  by  the  child. 
Or,  in  teaching  colours,  the  teacher  may  say : 
4  Look  at  this  !  This  is  red.'  And,  again, 
'This  is  blue/  'Give  me  the  red  !'  'Give  me 
the  blue  !  *  If  the  child  fails  to  give  the  blue, 
the  teacher  does  not  repeat  and  insist;  'she 
smiles,  gives  the  child  a  friendly  caress,  and 
takes  away  the  colours.'  The  work,  in  a 
word,  is  the  child's  work,  not  the  teacher's. 
Learning  comes  by  his  observing,  not  by 
her  insisting.  The  result  is  that  children 
learn  quickly,  and  the  teachers  do  not  tire. 
The  child  is  spontaneous,  and  the  teacher  is 
natural.  'When  the  teacher  shall  have 
touched,  in  this  way,  soul  for  soul,  each  one 
of  her  pupils,  awakening  and  inspiring  the 
life  within  them  .  .  .  there  will  come  a  day 
when  she  herself  shall  be  filled  with  wonder 
to  see  that  all  the  children  obey  her  with 
gentleness  and  affection,  not  only  ready  but 


176  MODERN  VIEWS 

intent,  at  a  sign  from  her.'  The  order  becomes 
perfect;  'and,  if  the  teacher,  speaking  in  a  low 
voice,  says  to  the  children,  "Rise,  pass 
several  times  round  the  room  on  the  tips  of 
your  toes,  and  then  come  back  again  to  your 
place  in  silence,"  all  together,  as  a  single 
person,  the  children  rise,  and  follow  the  order 
with  the  least  possible  noise.' 

(c)  These  First  Steps  in  Learning  are  thus 
Steps  in  Self -realisation.  The  child  has  the 
constant  satisfaction  of  discovering  his  own 
powers.  By  skilfully  devised  apparatus,  which 
invites  the  child  to  handle,  look,  or  listen, 
lessons  are  given  in  the  discrimination  of 
weight  and  temperature,  shape  and  texture, 
visual  form  and  colour,  tones  of  voice,  words, 
sounds  of  music.  Practice  is  given  in  handi- 
ness  by  the  use  of  various  kinds  of  material. 
The  child  learns  to  button  (by  hand  or  by 
using  a  hook),  to  lace,  to  tie  bows,  to  use  hooks 
and  eyes.  He  realises  that  he  is  learning  to 
do  something,  that  he  is  gaining  power.  Again, 
in  preference  to  some  of  the  purely  symbolic 
games  of  the  kindergarten,  the  children  are 
taught  to  perform  real  acts  of  social  service. 
They  wait  in  turn  upon  each  other  at  meal- 
time; little  four-year-old  waiters  laying  the 
knives  and  forks  and  spoons,  carrying  trays 


ON  EDUCATION  177 

with  water-glasses  and  tureens  of  soup — all 
without  mistake  or  accident.  During  the 
meal-time  they  watch  assiduously;  not  a  child 
empties  his  soup-plate  without  being  offered 
more;  if  he  is  ready  for  the  next  course,  a 
'waiter'  carries  off  his  plate.  'Every  one/ 
says  Dr  Montessori  'is  deeply  moved  by 
the  sight  I  have  just  described,  which 
evidently  results  from  the  development  of 
energies  latent  in  the  depths  of  the  human 
soul.' 

Gardening,  too,  as  English  and  other  experi- 
ments have  shown,  opens  out  a  wide  range  of 
interests  through  the  child's  own  activity. 
Children  from  four  years  of  age  work  with 
the  hoe,  sow  the  seed,  water  the  ground,  and 
watch  the  growth  of  their  plants.  In  another 
quarter  of  the  garden,  broods  of  chicks  or 
pigeons  appear  where  the  children  have  been 
tending  the  birds;  or  tiny  rabbits  are  seen 
in  the  hutch  where  the  big  rabbits  have  been 
fed.  And  all  this,  not  as  nature  study — 
though  incidentally  it  is  this — still  less  as 
industrial  education — though  the  course  of 
education  through  sense  and  muscle  is  felt  to 
be  preparatory  also  to  this — but  as  an  un- 
folding of  interests  and  an  attainment  of 
complete  experience. 


178  MODERN  VIEWS 

Gymnastics  supplement  these  activities, 
breathing  and  articulation  exercises  being 
especially  studied. 

(d)  All  is  Animated  by  a  High  Value  set 
upon  the  Individual  Life,  and  by  Faith  in  its 
Possibilities.  'Before  the  social  crusade  of 
the  present  day  lies  the  problem  of  life' 
Dr  Montessori,  as  would  be  expected,  cares 
too  supremely  for  liberty  and  power  of  life 
not  to  adjust  all  her  ideas  of  discipline  to  these 
ends.  She  still  hears  of  the  'breaking'  of  the 
child's  will  as  though  the  best  education  for 
the  will  of  the  child  were  to  learn  to  yield  it 
up  to  the  will  of  his  elders.  This  leads,  she 
believes,  to  childish  timidity,  the  moral 
malady  of  a  will  that  could  not  develop.  The 
remedy  for  the  lack  of  individuality  in  the 
scholars,  so  often  lamented  at  educational 
congresses,  is  only  to  be  found  in  methods 
which  'enfranchise  human  development'  and 
avoid  'repression  of  will-power  and  force  of 
character.'  This  faith  in  the  reality  and 
depth  of  the  child's  inner  life  shows  itself  in 
many  ways.  Dr  Montessori  has  the  artist's 
sensitiveness  to  the  effects  of  contrast.  The 
children's  self-activity,  for  example,  is  thrown 
into  bolder  relief  by  what  are  really  forms  of 
play,  depending  upon  stillness  and  silence. 


ON  EDUCATION  179 

In  silence  they  await  the  whispered  call  of  the 
teacher,  now  to  one  and  now  to  another,  and 
show  much  pleasure  when  their  own  names 
are  called.  This  is  not  an  isolated  discovery 
of  the  power  of  silence  and  of  stillness  in  the 
home,  in  school,  and  in  life.  But  the  '  Houses 
of  Childhood '  have  hit  upon  charming  ways  of 
accentuating  it.  Almost  the  last  word  in 
Dr  Montessori's  book  is  this:  'Truly  our 
social  life  is  too  often  only  the  darkening  and 
the  death  of  the  natural  life  that  is  in  us.'  It 
is  for  the  sake  of  guarding  that  spiritual  fire 
and  keeping  the  real  nature  unspoiled  that 
she  trains  the  little  children  to  enjoy  silence 
and  stillness,  and  to  experience,  however 
gradually  and  unconsciously,  their  subtle 
influence. 

(e)  All  this  is  not  without  Effect  upon  the 
Parents  of  the  Children  and  Their  Homes. 
The  quarter  of  San  Lorenzo,  in  Rome,  was 
chosen  for  the  first  'children's  houses,'  a 
quarter  notorious  throughout  the  city;  for 
the  newspapers  contained  'almost  daily 
accounts  of  its  wretched  happenings.'  Some 
of  these  scenes  Dr  Montessori  does  not  hesitate 
to  set  before  us  in  all  their  lurid  and  sham^- 
provoking  brutality.  But  even  here  she 
believed  was  the  power  of  life,  and  a 


180  MODERN  VIEWS 

possibility,  if  only  the  right  conditions  were 
introduced,  of  a  far  higher  self-realisation. 
Placed  in  a  large  dwelling-house,  the  rooms  of 
which  had  been  transformed  into  something 
more  home-like  by  the  Roman  Association  of 
Good  Building,  the  parents  are  given  a  direct 
interest  in  their  'children's  house.'  Not  only 
may  they  leave  their  children  there  when 
going  out  to  work  for  the  day,  but  they  are 
given  to  understand  that  the  money  which 
they  save  by  the  care  they  take  of  the  rest  of 
the  buildings  maintains  this  room  for  the 
children  and  makes  it  theirs;  they  also  have 
to  undertake  that  their  children  shall  come 
to  the  school  clean,  and  that  they  will  co- 
operate with  the  directress  (who  lives  there  !) 
in  the  educational  work. 

'Among  these  almost  savage  people,  into 
these  houses  where  at  night  no  one  dared  to 
go  about  unarmed,  there  has  come  not  only 
to  teach,  but  to  live  the  very  life  they  live, 
a  gentlewoman  of  culture,  an  educator  by 
profession,  who  dedicates  her  time  and  her 
life  to  those  about  her ! '  And  the  gracious 
service  is  not  unrewarded.  The  school  is 
put  within  the  house;  the  school  is  in  the 
collective  ownership  of  the  parents;  the 
directress  is  always  willing  to  give  advice  and 


ON  EDUCATION  181 

help  to  the  mothers;  the  mothers  may  go  in 
at  any  hour  of  the  day  to  'watch,  to  admire, 
or  to  meditate  upon  the  life  there.'  Little 
wonder  that  there  are  delicate  and  thoughtful 
attentions  shown  by  the  mothers  in  response ! 
'They  often  leave  sweets  or  flowers  upon  the 
sill  of  the  school-room  window,  as  a  silent 
token,  almost  religiously  given/  The  advan- 
tage to  the  common  schools,  in  thus 
forestalling  the  mothers'  interest  in  their 
children's  life  and  work  there,  when  in  three 
years  they  pass  on  into  them,  is  not  over- 
looked by  those  who  plan  and  direct  these 
children's  houses. 

Once,  again,  the  educational  *  method,'  as 
Dr  Montessori  describes  it,  is  being  applied  in 
conditions  totally  different  from  those  which 
are  found  in  our  ordinary  schools.  So  far  as 
reaching  the  tenement  dwellers  was  con- 
cerned, the  crucial  fact  was  the  taking  of  the 
school  to  them,  and  making  it  in  a  sense  theirs. 
The  children  were  taken  charge  of  for  the 
whole  day,  and  the  directress  even  lives  in 
the  tenement  house  as  a  friend  and  counsellor. 
It  is  fair  to  note,  however,  that  Mr  Holmes, 
(See  his  pamphlet  Educational  Pamphlets,  No. 
24),  found  the  system  working  more  satisfac- 
torily in  his  judgment  in  the  lowest  class  of 


182  MODERN   VIEWS 

a  girls'  school  for  well-to-do  children,  and 
in  a  convent  school.  Madame  Pujol-Sejalas, 
the  directress  of  the  Montessori  'Houses 
of  Childhood*  in  Paris,  also  speaks  of  a 
school  in  England,  at  King's  Langley,  to 
which  she  had  sent  her  own  little  girl, 
and  which  was  on  very  much  the  same 
principle. 

(/)  The  Motive,  like  that  of  all  True  Educa- 
tion, is  that  of  the  Betterment  of  Life.  We 
often  hear  and  read  that  society  educates 
its  young  life  in  order  to  reproduce  its  own 
standards  of  well-being,  and  to  impress  them 
upon  the  rising  generation.  This  would  mean 
casting  the  next  generation  in  the  mould  of 
the  last  in  order  to  make  our  sons  as  fine 
fellows  as  their  fathers  are !  Dr  Montessori 
prefers  the  ideal  of  the  woman  of  Zarathustra  : 
*  To  create  a  son  !  A  son  better,  more  perfect, 
stronger,  than  any  created  heretofore  ! '  Hence 
the  houses  of  childhood  have  a  broad  out- 
look upon  life.  They  are  not  self-contained 
centres  of  instruction  :  their  influence  irradi- 
ates home  and  neighbourhood.  'Scientific 
pedagogy  will  seek  in  vain  to  better  the  new 
generation  if  it  does  not  succeed  in  influencing 
also  the  environment  within  which  this  new 
generation  grows/ 


ON  EDUCATION  183 

It  is  highly  probable  that  the  world  would 
have  given  far  less  heed  to  this  notable  piece  of 
work  were  it  not  for  the  results  attained  in 
reading  and  writing.  The  children  read  and 
write  at  four  years  of  age,  and  come  to  it 
by  a  process  of  their  own.  The  writing  turns 
upon  the  discovery  (which  Mr  Ebenezer  Cooke 
also  made,  and  which  became  the  basis  some 
years  ago  of  an  alternative  system  of  drawing 
authorised  by  the  Board  of  Education)  that 
a  child  scribbles  naturally  in  curves.  Instead 
of  beginning  with  strokes,  therefore,  large 
curvilinear  letters  are  made.  They  are  cut 
out  in  sand-paper,  and  then  mounted  on  card. 
By  touching  the  letters  and  tracing  their 
form  with  the  fingers,  the  children  learn  the 
muscular  movements  required  in  writing 
them.  The  acquisition,  helped  doubtless  by 
the  comparative  regularity  of  the  Italian 
script,  is  astonishingly  rapid.  All  the  acts 
necessary  to  writing  having  been  mastered, 
the  child  discovers  some  day  that  he  can 
write,  and  he  begins  with  whole  words. 
Reading  follows  later. 

The  work  in  these  infant  schools  is  planned 
in  five  stages.  At  the  fourth  stage,  the  child 
counts,  and  begins  to  touch  and  name  the 
letters  of  the  alphabet;  at  the  fifth  he  writes 


184  MODERN  VIEWS 

words  and  phrases  spontaneously,  and  reads 
from  slips  prepared  by  the  directress. 

The  inventress  was  as  little  disposed  as 
an  American  kindergarten  teacher  would  be 
to  teach  reading  and  writing  to  children  under 
six  years  of  age.  She  was  practically  forced 
to  it  by  the  children  themselves,  seconded  by 
their  mothers.  The  doubt  will  still  linger  in 
many  minds  as  to  whether  something  less 
formal,  less  mentally  exciting  when  acquired 
— though  the  children  learn  easily  enough — 
might  not  continue  to  be  the  basis  of  the 
children's  studies  in  form  and  exercises  in 
movement;  whether  symmetry  and  rhythm, 
the  bases  of  design,  might  not  be  in  the  long 
run  more  educative  and  more  profitable  than 
the  conventional  symbols.  In  these  early 
days  all  that  is  justifiable  is  to  note,  with  the 
barest  comment,  what  Dr  Montessori  herself 
says  :  'The  children  seemed  to  demand  some 
conclusion  of  the  exercises,  which  had  already 
developed  them  intellectually  in  a  most  sur- 
prising way.  They  knew  how  to  dress  and 
undress,  and  to  bathe  themselves;  they  knew 
how  to  sweep  the  floors,  dust  the  furniture, 
put  the  room  in  order,  to  open  and  close 
boxes,  to  manage  the  keys  in  the  various 
locks;  they  could  replace  the  objects  in  the 


ON  EDUCATION  185 

cupboard  in  perfect  order,  could  care  for  the 
plants;  they  knew  how  to  observe  things,  and 
how  to  "see"  objects  with  their  hands.  A 
number  of  them  came  to  us  and  frankly 
demanded  to  be  taught  to  read  and  write. 
And  the  faith  of  the  mothers,  that  their  little 
ones  would  from  us  be  able  to  learn  to  read  and 
write  without  fatigiie,  made  a  great  impression 
upon  me.' 

The  comment  which  these  words  suggest 
has  been  already  broached.  It  turns  upon 
the  list  of  things  which  the  children  have 
learned  to  do.  The  exercises,  which  are  here 
cited  as  finding  their  natural  conclusion  in 
writing  and  reading,  will  appear  to  some 
teachers  to  err  on  the  side  of  immediate 
utility,  and  to  leave  more  highly  educative 
forms  of  spontaneous  activity  too  much  out 
of  the  teacher's  reckoning.  Drawing,  model- 
ling, dancing,  acting,  listening  to  stories, 
learning  poetry,  have  been  mentioned  as 
notable  omissions.  Dr  Montessori,  however, 
is  the  last  to  wish  her  method  to  be  adopted 
by  any  en  bloc.  The  utmost  that  any  one, 
interested  in  experimenting  along  the  lines 
of  her  discoveries,  should  aim  at  is  expressed 
by  Madame  Pujol-S£galas,  when  she  says 
of  her  Paris  schools:  'The  animating  spirit 


186  MODERN  VIEWS 

is  the  same,  not  the  details/  Many  of 
Dr  Montessori's  devices  are  highly  ingenious, 
and  when  the  results  are  before  us  it  is  not 
surprising  that  much  is  said  about  the  '  didac- 
tic apparatus  ! '  It  is  worth  studying  by  the 
ordinary  teacher  for  what  it  suggests  even 
more  than  for  what  it  is.  But  the  roots  of 
the  system,  and  the  secret  alike  of  its  inven- 
tive discoveries  and  of  its  success,  are  in 
Madame  Montessori's  whole-hearted  belief  in 
the  child's  powers  of  self-realisation.  It  is 
of  less  importance  to  the  teachers  of  the  world 
as  a  'method'  than  as  a  manifestation  of  the 
new  educational  spirit.  It  is  a  token  of  the 
life  and  faith  which  are  entering  into  educa- 
tion, and  which  are  destined  to  make  the 
education  of  the  young  in  the  twentieth 
century  greater,  alike  in  purpose  and  result, 
than  the  world  has  hitherto  seen. 

2.  This  same  spirit,  fortunately,  is  finding 
expression  in  many  ways  and  in  many  lands. 
A  striking  example  in  elementary  education 
is  that  described  under  the  name  'a  school  in 
Utopia*  in  Mr  Holmes' s  book,  What  Is  and 
What  Might  Be.  The  author  tells  of  a  village 
school  (its  exact  locality  need  not  be  divulged) 
of  a  hundred  and  twenty  children,  whose 
head  teacher  has  'revolutionised  the  life,  not 


ON  EDUCATION  1ST 

of  the  school  only,  but  of  the  whole  village/ 
Activity  and  happiness  are  the  salient  features 
of  the  school  life,  in  a  county  which  is  pro- 
verbial for  the  dullness  of  its  rustics.  The 
source  of  the  happiness  is  the  scholars* 
'unimpeded  energy.'  'And  the  activity  of 
the  Utopian  child  is  his  own  activity.  It  is 
a  fountain  which  springs  up  in  himself,  else, 
to  give  one  instance,  how  could  it  happen 
that  when  the  three  assistant  teachers  were 
one  day  absent  through  illness,  and  the  head 
teacher  was  detained  by  one  of  the  school 
managers  for  half  an  hour,  she  found  them  aH 
at  work  when  she  entered,  one  o£  the  elder 
scholars  taking  charge  of  the  lower  classes  f 
This  is  only  possible  as  a  result  of  the  higher 
discipline  which  is  pervasive,  but  of  which  no 
one  is  ever  very  conscious.  Some  ten  or 
twelve  years  ago  the  children  attending  the 
school  were  dull  and  lifeless;  now  they  are 
bright  and  overflowing  with  life,  because  their 
better  and  higher  nature  has  been  allowed  to 
evolve  itself  freely,  naturally,  and  under 
favourable  conditions/  (It  must  be  said,  in 
passing,  that  one  hears  of  rural  schools  in 
America  where  transformations  of  a  like  kind 
have  taken  place;  here  the  one  example  will 
serve.)  The  fundamental  faith  of  the  school 


188  MODERN  VIEWS 

is  in  the  child's  expansive  instincts,  his  'many- 
sided  effort  to  grow.  The  teacher's  essential 
part  is  to  give  these  instincts  fair  play  and 
free  play.'  It  is  education  through  self-realisa- 
tion. The  nature  of  the  child,  that  is  to  say, 
impels  him  (1)  to  talk  and  listen,  (2)  to  wish 
to  act  (in  the  dramatic  sense),  (3)  to  draw 
and  to  model,  (4)  to  dance  and  to  sing, 
(5)  to  desire  to  know  the  why  of  things,  (6)  to 
wish  to  construct  things. 

Communicativeness  and  spontaneous  drama- 
tising are  as  fundamental  in  the  child's 
nature  and,  therefore,  in  his  education,  as 
curiosity  and  constructiveness.  The  oral 
lesson  is  the  great  occasion  for  the  play  of  the 
communicative  instinct;  the  children  being 
encouraged  to  ask  questions  and  to  express 
their  own  thoughts.  With  classes  of  thirty, 
however,  which  is  apparently  the  average 
number  in  this  *  Utopian'  school,  since  there 
are  four  teachers,  much  is  possible  which  is 
impossible,  and,  indeed,  almost  ceases  to  be 
natural  with  twice  that  number.  The  head 
teacher,  moreover,  makes  a  habit  of  meeting, 
fifteen  or  twenty  minutes  before  the  time  for 
opening  school  in  the  morning,  such  children 
as  wish  to  talk  to  her  about  things  that 
interest  them. 


ON  EDUCATION  189 

Then,  as  many  are  now  discovering,  what 
a  change  it  is  from  the  dull  and  the  formal  to 
the  living  and  the  real  when  history  becomes 
a  source  of  simple  drama  rather  than  a  string 
of  dates  !  The  artistic  impulses,  again,  with 
which  all  normal  children  are  endowed,  are 
used  to  give  warmth  and  intensity  to  life  in 
school  and  out  of  school.  For  it  is  understood 
that  in  order  to  draw  with  brush  and  pencil, 
children  must  learn  to  see  and  admire;  and 
to  care  for  music  and  find  the  power  of  song, 
they  must  learn  to  listen  and  to  love. 
Certainly,  the  influence  of  music  in  children's 
lives  has  not  yet  been  sufficiently  allowed  for, 
though  it  is  known  to  have  salutary  physical 
and  intellectual  effects,  as  well  as  to  be  regula- 
tive of  the  emotional  tendencies.  In  this 
school,  the  teacher,  to  use  her  own  words, 
'sets  many  of  the  children's  lessons  to  music.' 
*  When  they  are  doing  needlework  or  drawing 
or  any  other  quiet  lesson,  she  plays  high-class 
music  to  them,  which  forms  a  background  to 
their  efforts  and  their  thoughts,  and  which 
gradually  weaves  itself,  on  the  one  hand  into 
the  outward  and  visible  work  that  they  are 
doing,  and  on  the  other  hand  into  the  mysteri- 
ous tissue  of  their  inward  life.'  In  effect, 
instead  of  the  teacher  correcting  the 


190  MODERN  VIEWS 

children's  drawings,  they  are  led  to  use  their 
own  free  power  and  to  correct  them  them- 
selves. 

Obedience  is  a  feature  of  the  Utopian  school, 
just  as  it  is  of  the  'houses  of  childhood.'  It 
is  the  life  of  the  school,  rather  than  something 
imposed  upon  it,  or  even  consciously  present 
in  it.  Each  child  finds  in  it  a  way  of  attain- 
ment rather  than  a  way  of  reluctant  sub- 
mission. Effort  and  mastery  are  called  for; 
the  child's  work  is  still  the  essential  element 
in  his  education.  But  it  is  work  in  answer  to 
an  appeal  to,  and  as  an  expression  of,  his 
own  power.  Reading,  writing,  and  arith- 
metic relate  themselves  to  one  or  other  of  the 
'expansive'  instincts,  and  are  mastered  as 
means  to  ends  beyond  themselves.  The 
scholar  finds  in  work  a  joy  like  that  which  we 
find  in  the  work  which  we  do  best.  And  this 
joy  follows  the  boys  and  girls  into  humdrum 
duties  of  their  village  life  when  schooldays 
are  over. 

Even  if  here  and  there  the  author  of 
What  Is  and  What  Might  Be  unconsciously 
dips  his  pen  in  the  ink  of  the  idealist,  the  main 
truth  he  is  presenting  holds  good. 

'The  Utopian  children/  says  the  author, 
'  arc  by  many  degrees  the  happiest  that  I  have 


ON  EDUCATION  191 

met  in  an  elementary  school,  and  I  must 
therefore  conclude  that  all  is  well  with  them. 
.  .  .  Last  year  one  of  the  boys,  on  leaving 
school,  found  employment  in  a  large  field  on 
the  slopes  of  the  hills,  where  he  had  to  collect 
flints  and  pile  them  in  heaps,  his  wage  for 
this  dull  and  tiresome  work  being  no  more  than 
fivepence  a  day.  But  he  found  the  work 
neither  dull  nor  tiresome;  for  as  he  marched 
up  and  down  the  field,  collecting  and  piling 
the  flints  with  cheery  goodwill,  he  sang  his 
Folk  Songs  with  all  the  spontaneous  happiness 
of  a  soaring  lark.' 

This  school  is  not  referred  to  here  as  an 
isolated  example.  It  is  an  instance  and 
summary  of  good  things  that  are  happening 
in  all  directions. 

3.  We  should  not  look  in  vain  for  secondary 
schools  fulfilling  similar  conditions.  Glancing 
back  for  a  moment  to  a  great  nineteenth 
century  master,  it  was  through  his  faith  in 
'life  and  truth' — 'truth'  meaning  to  him  the 
giving  of  a  real  education  to  every  boy — that 
Thring  raised  the  small  grammar  school  at 
Uppingham,  with  its  poor  premises  and  few 
ill-behaved  boys,  to  a  position  in  which  it 
ranked  with  the  great  public  schools  of  the 
country.  He  had  faith  in  the  Schoolboy, 


192  MODERN  VIEWS 

whether  backward  and  diffident,  or  promising 
and  brilliant — and  he  believed,  therefore,  in 
the  mission  of  the  school.  'A  message/  he 
said,  'plainly  delivered  by  common  lips  in 
time  of  war  may  save  an  empire,  if  it  is  indeed 
a  message/  His  '  message '  was  that  education 
has  human  values,  that  it  adds  to  the  zest 
and  joy  of  living,  and  that  the  boy  is  ready 
and  waiting  to  put  forth  his  strength  and  his 
skill.  In  his  view,  'lives,  not  lessons/  were 
the  master's  chief  concern;  and  he  himself 
knew  how  to  find  the  'spark  of  fire  in  the 
coarsest  of  human  clay/  Three  striking 
innovations,  now  widely  adopted,  we  owe  to 
him :  the  gymnasium  and  the  gymnastic 
master,  music  as  part  of  the  school  training, 
and  the  school  'mission/  The  school  was  thus 
to  be  a  centre  of  earnest  wholesome  life; 
a  place  where  mind  is  'unlocked/  not  the 
memory  merely  loaded. 

The  outstanding  strength  of  all  our  great 
schools  is  the  part  played  by  the  boys  them- 
selves in  fashioning  their  life.  This  safe- 
guards spontaneity,  and  is  the  key  to  the 
educative  influence  of  the  schools.  Mind, 
however,  needs  to  be  'unlocked/  and  interest 
in  the  world  aroused.  Hence,  when  France 
and  Germany  look  to  us  for  models  and  write 


ON   EDUCATION  193 

in  praise  of  our  secondary  'public  school' 
education,  it  is  to  schools  which  offer  a  broad, 
all-round  life,  and  whose  world  faces  the  real 
world,  that  they  customarily  look.  M. 
Demolins  is  the  best  known  of  these  writers. 
Dr  Leitz  is  another.  There  are  secondary 
schools,  in  which,  without  loss  of  what  is 
best  in  the  public  school  spirit,  practical  out- 
door work  is  as  real  as  the  play;  where  recrea- 
tion of  lighter  kinds  and  the  pursuit  of  hobbies 
have  an  ample  place  assigned  to  them;  and 
the  school  work  is  thorough  without  being 
oppressive.  The  boys  have  interests  upon 
which  they  will  converse  with  a  visitor.  And 
before  a  boy  leaves  the  school,  he  almost 
invariably  knows  his  bent,  and  has  made  up 
his  mind  as  to  his  life-calling  ;  probably  he 
has  already,  through  his  leisure  occupations 
and  in  other  ways,  done  something  to  prepare 
himself  for  the  next  stage  of  his  career.  The 
strength  of  such  schools,  as  one  of  these 
school-founders  has  expressed  it,  is  belief  in 
the  'possibilities  of  English  boyhood,  when 
suffered  to  grow  naturally  and  harmoniously/ 
4.  The  'moral'  of  these  brief  glances  at 
the  new  educational  life  and  power  which  are 
making  themselves  felt,  is  that  Britain's  gain 
lies  in  the  direction  of  a  completer  faith  in 

M.V.E.  I 


194  MODERN  VIEWS 

the  rich  native  endowment  of  her  sons.  British 
personality  is  far  from  being  a  matter  of 
school-room  manufacture.  None  the  less,  for 
our  many-sided  life  and  multiplying  interest 
we  need  to  have  our  powers  awakened  early. 

From  a  purely  educational  standpoint, 
there  are  two  directions  in  which  this  higher 
note  of  care  for  individuality  and  self-realisa- 
tion needs  to  be  struck.  These  are  the 
liberating  of  the  teacher  and  the  liberating  of 
the  child.  If,  in  order  to  set  free  the  life  and 
develop  the  power  of  quick  vision  and  alert 
response  in  the  childhood  and  youth  of  the 
nation,  it  becomes  necessary  greatly  to 
increase  the  number  of  teachers  in  nearly 
every  type  of  school,  and  also  the  number  of 
training  colleges,  the  investment  will  be  a 
sound  one.  One  hears,  e.g.,  in  some  places  of 
children  being  prematurely  promoted  in  order 
to  raise  the  higher  classes  to  the  statute 
minimum  of  sixty.  But  when  this  leads  to 
scholars  of  four  grades  of  attainment  being 
bracketed  together  in  one  class  and  under 
one  teacher,  the  need  for  more  teachers  and 
for  a  really  more  liberal  and  liberating  educa- 
tion for  the  child  is  evident. 

Of  equal  importance  is  the  liberating  of  the 
teacher.  Until  the  teachers  of  England  are 


ON  EDUCATION  195 

free,  England  is  not  free;  for  they  impart 
of  their  spirit  to  every  child.  To  say  that  the 
teachers  of  the  great  proportion  of  the  children 
attending  our  elementary  schools  are  not  free 
at  present,  and  have  no  sort  of  clear  or  sure 
outlook  towards  freedom,  towards  *  liberty  to 
teach,'  is  to  assert  the  commonplace.  Trained 
teachers  tell  of  the  disappointment  that  is 
'general,'  a  disappointment  which  makes  the 
'struggle'  to  be  alive  as  a  teacher  doubly 
difficult.  The  Code,  they  say,  counsels  the 
development  of  the  individuality  of  the  child; 
and  they  personally  realise  that  their  work 
should  be  to  give  each  child  freedom  to  develop 
along  his  own  lines,  'interfering'  only  when 
the  child  is  side-tracking.  But  think  of  it, 
say  they,  'developing  the  individuality  of 
sixty  children  ! ' 

'I  am  willing,'  says  one  correspondent,  'to 
wear  myself  out  in  doing  so,  but  think  of  the 
rude  awakening.  In  each  subject  our  work 
is  judged  by  experts.  We  have  a  drawing 
inspector,  a  drill  inspector,  a  music  inspector, 
a  hand-and-eye-training  inspector,  and  others/ 

One  is  reminded,  in  passing,  of  the  words  of 
a  Training  College  student  some  years  ago. 
After  five  examinations  (whole  or  part  week) 
in  academic  subjects,  in  addition  to  examination 


196  MODERN  VIEWS 

and  inspection  in  professional  subjects, 
she  said,  with  a  pardonable  sigh :  '  We  seem 
to  be  always  being  examined.'  In  her  case, 
there  was  a  sixth  academic  examination  to 
follow  within  the  same  twelve  months.  Now, 
perhaps,  she  is  with  equally  good  reason 
saying :  '  We  seem  to  be  always  being 
inspected.' 

Again,  'for  some  time  the  rule  in  drawing, 
especially  in  brush  and  crayon  work,  has 
been  to  "mass"  the  copy.  The  child  sees 
the  leaf,  etc.,  not  as  an  outline  but  as  a  mass, 
and  we  teach  him  to  draw  it  accordingly.' 
Now  comes  the  'specialist.'  He  finds  the 
lower  classes  doing  crayon  work,  in  harmony 
with  the  recommended  method.  But  as  it 
does  not  represent  his  personal  view  of  the 
matter,  all  has  to  be  changed.  No  psychological 
reason  is  given;  but  'next  day  word  was  sent 
that  outlines  must  be  made.  It  will  be  thus 
until  we  have  a  change  of  specialist.' 

Now  these  extracts  from  a  letter  coming 
spontaneously  from  an  old  student  have  a 
meaning.  The  teacher  himself  interprets  the 
situation  thus :  '  In  most  cases  it  is  woe 
betide  the  teacher  or  the  child  who  dares  to 
exert  his  individuality.'  Granted,  we  all  have 
much  to  learn.  Yet  there  is  ample  room 


ON  EDUCATION  197 

for  a  little  more  belief  in  the  willingness  and 
the  life-force  of  both  teacher  and  child  as  the 
only  agencies  that  can  produce  actual  results. 
It  would  not  matter  so  much  though  an  in- 
spector knew  comparatively  little  about  the 
type  of  the  education  he  is  inspecting,  and 
the  actual  conditions  of  the  work,  if  he  knew 
how  to  come  into  a  class  and  look  for  some- 
thing good  to  speak  about,  and  so  encourage 
with  a  word  and  a  smile  both  teacher  and 
scholar.  He  would  then  be  a  living  force. 
And  if  he  does  know  something,  and  gives 
advice  or  makes  a  suggestion  with  sympa- 
thetic insight  into  the  conditions,  his  advice 
will  in  almost  all  cases  be  welcomed.  For 
there  is  keenness  for  the  work,  willingness  to 
learn  how  to  do  it  better,  care  for  the  children, 
and  no  little  patriotic  aspiration,  awaiting 
encouragement  in  the  class-rooms  of  our 
elementary  schools.  Were  it  not  so,  there 
would  be  no  hope;  for  vitality  can  but  be 
quickened;  it  cannot  be  imposed.  In  such 
delicate  matters  as  the  relationship  between 
a  teacher  and  his  class,  the  building  up  of 
school-tone  and  school-spirit,  the  awakening 
of  enthusiasm  for  intellectual  pursuits,  we 
need  always  to  begin  by  respecting  the  life 
that  is  already  there. 


198  MODERN   VIEWS 

Is  there  any  age  after  which  it  is  too  late 
to  hope  for  the  awakening  of  the  deeper 
personality  for  which  education  stands? 
America  gives  us  two  striking  examples. 
There  is  the  Roycroft  Shop,  an  industrial 
colony  in  New  York  State,  with  Elbert 
Hubbard  at  its  head,  to  whom  plain  folk 
come  seeking  work,  and  he  lets  them  do  the 
work  they  can  do  best.  Some  are  young 
people  who  were  expelled  from  school;  some 
are  said  to  be  deficient  mentally  and  morally; 
some  have  been  in  prison.  But  if  they  have 
nothing  else  to  do,  and  are  not  wanted  else- 
where, they  gravitate  to  the  Shop,  where 
'they  are  given  every  opportunity  to  develop 
their  energies/  The  various  departments 
of  book-making  (in  all  its  branches),  furniture 
making,  even  some  art  work,  have  arisen 
through  there  being  c  some  one  who  could  not 
do  that — so  he  was  allowed  to  do  what  he 
could.'  The  result  has  been  a  renewed  faith 
in  the  reality  and  worth  of  spontaneous 
human  energy,  and  the  discovery  that  this 
faith  applied  to  manufacturing  is  a  very 
good  policy.  The  other  example  is  that  of 
the  now  famous  George  Junior  Republic,  in 
which,  by  allowing  a  free  development  of  the 
social,  civic,  and  industrial  impulses  the 


ON  EDUCATION  199 

proportion  of  the  'Junior  Republic*  criminals 
is  no  greater  than  that  of  the  criminal  popula- 
tion in  the  American  Republic  itself;  although 
all  the  young  people,  when  they  enter  upon 
the  Junior  Republic  life,  are  either  actual 
criminals,  or  in  dangerous  surroundings  from 
which  this  unique  reforming  agency  gives 
them  deliverance.  (A  short  account  of  a  visit 
to  the  Junior  Republic  is  given  as  an  appendix 
to  Moral  Education  in  American  Schools. 
Volume  X.  of  Special  Reports  on  Educational 
Subjects.) 

Briefly  to  sum  up  the  present  chapter. 
All  truly  educative  methods  have  their 
worth  in  fulfilling  the  two-fold  aim  of  indi- 
vidual self-realisation  and  social  efficiency. 
Dr  Montessori's  view  of  man  is  that  he  is 
moving  on  to  the  possession  of  greater  powers 
and  completer  efficiency.  This  is  the  creative 
aspect  of  her  work.  If,  e.g.  we  do  not  give  full 
scope  to  sense  capacity,  '  we  isolate  man  from 
his  environment/  But  by  giving  play  to  the 
life-force  that  is  in  him  man  may  continue  to 
evolve  with  his  environment,  for  his  endowment 
is,  in  fact,  vastly  greater  than  the  demands 
that  have  hitherto  been  made  upon  it.  In 
infancy  this  larger  fact  of  adaptation  is,  of 
course,  only  'indirectly  touched/  Self- 


200  MODERN  VIEWS 

realisation  is  the  first  and  direct  aim.  Joy 
in  life  and  power  in  work  will  follow.  'I 
have  seen  here,'  Dr  Montessori  writes,  'men 
of  affairs,  great  politicians,  preoccupied  with 
problems  of  trade  and  of  State  .  .  .  fall  into 
a  simple  forgetfulness  of  self  .  .  .  affected  by 
this  vision  of  the  human  soul  growing  in  its 
true  nature, — the  infancy  of  humanity  in 
a  higher  stage  of  evolution  than  our  own.' 
For  family,  nation,  and  empire,  this  is  a 
note  worth  sustaining.  And  that  nation 
has  its  future  secure  which  makes  this 
higher  evolution  its  chief  care. 


ON  EDUCATION  201 


CHAPTER  X 

THE  CHILD  AND  THE  SCHOOL 

The  child  is  greater  than  all  statistics, 
still  wild  and  free,  notwithstanding  the 
harness  of  the  school,  the  uniformity  of 
repetition,  and  the  confinement  of  the  class. 
— DOUGLAS  PEPLER,  in  The  Care  Committee, 
the  Child,  and  the  Parent. 

IN  focussing,  as  we  are  now  to  do,  the  whole 
problem  of  education  in  the  child,  many 
questions  affecting  human  welfare  and  human 
progress  will  crowd  together  in  the  space  of 
a  few  pages.  The  whole  problem  of  the 
future  centres  in  the  child;  the  possessor  of 
the  blood  of  the  race;  the  only  possible 
transmitter  of  the  life  and  genius  of  the 
race ! 

No  reasoned  treatment  of  the  theme  could 
conceivedly  suffer  from  over-emphasis. 
Viewed  from  the  standpoint  of  fifty  years 
hence,  the  child  is  well-nigh  all  there  is.  Side 
by  side  with  this  simple  truism  lives  the 
passion  of  man  to  perpetuate  that  in  which  he 
believes.  If  we  believe  in  man,  in  the  nation, 


202  MODERN   VIEWS 

in  the  quickening  of  the  nation's  heart  through 
empire,  we  thereby  believe  implicitly  in  the 
child,  the  builder  of  the  new  society  which  is 
to  be  the  nation  of  the  morrow,  and  the 
guardian  of  its  empire.  We  can  only  fulfil 
our  two-fold  instinct  to  perpetuate  what  seems 
to  us  good,  and  to  pave  the  way  for  that 
which  shall  be  better,  in  and  through  our 
service  to  the  child.  We  serve  the  future  in 
him. 

Accordingly,  the  organisation  of  school 
systems,  the  planning  of  curricula,  devices 
for  discipline  and  moral  training,  must  all 
bend  to  this  first  and  chief  consideration. 
There  is  but  one  principle  that  can  guide  us. 
It  is  that  we  learn  to  know  and  to  respect 
the  life  that  is  already  there.  And  here  we 
have  the  pivot-truth  on  which  all  study  of 
education  turns.  The  child  is  our  real  teacher 
of  educational  method;  and  we  follow  a  true 
path  in  proportion  as  we  understand,  and 
follow  the  lead  of,  the  life  that  is  already 
his.  There  is  no  known  way  of  fitting 
the  child  to  a  school  that  does  not  fit 
him. 

At  this  point  we  strike  upon  a  discussion 
still  occupying  an  almost  central  place  in 
educational  debate.  Does  this  view  of  the 


ON  EDUCATION  203 

child  open  out  into  sentiment?  Is  its  out- 
come 'peptonised  education*  and  'soft  peda- 
gogy'? The  alternatives  are  put,  and  each, 
in  a  context  of  its  own,  is  advocated  by 
Mr  Dooley,  who  is  'philosopher'  enough  not 
to  be  afraid  of  contradicting  himself  in 
stating  two  sides  of  a  question  when  both 
are  true.  'We  send  the  childer  to  school/  he 
says  in  one  place,  'as  if  'twas  a  summer 
garden  where  they  go  to  be  amused  instead 
iv  a  pinitinchry  where  they're  sint  f  r  th' 
original  sin.  .  .  .  Well,  afther  they  have 
learned  in  school  what  they  ar-re  licked  f  r 
larnin'  in  th*  back-yard — that  is,  squashin* 
mud  with  their  hands — they're  conducted  up 
thro'  a  channel  iv  free  an'  beautiful  thought  till 
they're  r-ready  f'r  colledge.'  .  .  .  Mr  Dooley 
then  pictures  such  a  one  presenting  himself: 
'if  he's  not  sthrong  enough  to  look  f'r  high 
honors  as  a  middle-weight  pugilist,  he  goes 
into  the  thought  departmint.  Th'  prisident 
takes  him  into  a  Turkish  room,  gives  him 
a  cigareet  an*  says :  "  Me  dear  boy,  what 
special  branch  iv  larnin'  wud  ye  like  to  be 
studied  f'r  ye  by  our  compitint  profissor?"  ' 
'Whereas,'  adds  the  philosopher,  'it  was  the 
being  at  school,  and  havin'  to  get  things  to 
heart  without  askin*  th'  meanin*  iv  them,  an* 


204  MODERN  VIEWS 

goin'  to  school  cold  an*  comin'  home  hungry, 
that  made  th'  man  iv  me  ye  see  before  ye.' 
At  other  times  he  questions  it  out  differently. 
'What  d'ye  know  about  thim  little  wans  that 
ye  have  so  carefully  reared  be  lavin'  thim  in 
th'  mornin'  befure  they  get  up  an'  losin' 
ye'er  temper  with  thim  at  night  whin  ye 
come  home  fr'm  wurruk.  .  .  .  I've  often 
wondered  what  a  little  boy  thinks  about  us. 
.  .  .  We  wake  him  up  in  the  mornin'  when  he 
wants  to  sleep.  We  fire  him  off  to  school  just 
about  th'  time  iv  day  whin  any  wan  ought 
to  be  out  iv  dures.  He  trudges  off  to  a  brick 
buildin';  an'  a  tired  teacher  tells  him  a  lot 
iv  things  he  hasn't  any  inthrest  in  at  all, 
like  how  many  times  sivin  goes  into  a  hundred 
an'  nine,  and  who  was  King  iv  England  in 
thirteen  twenty-two,  an'  where  is  Kazabazoo 
on  the  map.  He  has  to  set  there  most  iv  th' 
pleasant  part  iv  th'  day  with  sixty  other  kids, 
an'  ivry  time  he  thries  to  do  anything  that 
seems  right  to  him  .  .  .  th'  sthrange  lady 
or  gintleman  that  acts  as  his  keeper  swoops 
down  on  him  an'  makes  him  feel  like  a 
criminal.  To'rds  evenin',  if  he's  been  good 
an'  repressed  all  his  nacharal  instincts, 
he's  allowed  to  go  home  an'  chop  some 
wood.  .  .  .  Maybe  we're  both  wrong  in 


ON  EDUCATION  205 

the  way  we   look  at  each  other,  us  an'  th' 
childer.' 

There  must  evidently  be  a  way  of  harmon- 
ising contrary  opinions  which  are  both  right. 
The  truth  is  that,  though  contrary,  iiifey  are 
not  contradictory.  The  child  does  not  need 
bribing;  and  frightening  him  is  no  part  of 
his  education.  On  the  contrary,  he  finds 
pleasure  in  real  effort;  is  interested  in  some- 
thing that  means  a  fight.  Every  healthy 
child  is  ready  for  the  mood  of  attack.  For 
him,  as  for  us,  'life  is  a  happy  war,  but  it  is 
a  very  unhappy  peace.'  For  him,  as  for  us, 
'there  is  no  pacific  method  of  reading  the 
riddle  of  human  happiness.  Solviturpugnando.' 
With  humorous  insight  the  head  of  one  of 
our  modern  universities  has  described  primary 
education  as  learning  to  do  things  we  do  not 
like,  and  secondary  education  as  learning  to 
look  as  if  we  liked  them.  Allowing  something 
for  differences  of  temperament  and  endow- 
ment, it  is  true  of  the  average  healthy  child 
that  he  craves  to  put  forth  his  strength, 
whether  of  body,  intellect,  or  will.  And  the 
invitation  to  do  so  is  a  compliment  to  which 
even  those  not  naturally  of  an  active  temper 
seldom,  if  ever,  turn  a  deaf  ear.  There  is 
a  middle  way,  therefore,  between  'soft'  and 


206  MODERN  VIEWS 

'hard*  pedagogy,  between  a  'peptonised'  and 
a  wholly  indigestible  mental  diet.  It  is  the 
way  of  a  stimulating  interest,  of  the  nature 
and  methods  of  which  we  gain  our  truest  con- 
ceptions the  more  completely  we  allow  for 
the  life  impulses  within  the  child.  'The 
deepest  thing  in  a  child  is  the  striving  to  be 
himself,  his  very  self.  And  the  first  and  great 
commandment  is :  Respect  that  in  the  child 
which  impels  him  to  live  his  own  life  in  his 
own  way.' 

The  name  of  Colonel  Francis  Parker  will, 
without  much  doubt,  be  linked  with  that  of 
Horace  Mann  in  all  future  histories  of 
America's  educational  development  in  the 
nineteenth  century.  The  writer  was  present, 
in  1900,  at  the  twenty-fifth  anniversary  of 
the  'new  education'  movement  in  America, 
which,  as  superintendent  of  schools  at  Quincey 
in  Massachusetts  from  1875  to  1885,  Colonel 
Parker  had  practically  set  on  foot.  At  that 
meeting,  which  was  addressed,  amongst  others, 
by  Presidents  Murray  Butler  and  G.  Stanley 
Hall,  and  the  late  Dr  W.  T.  Harris,  Colonel 
Parker  described  many  things  which  were  new 
twenty-five  years  before,  but  which  have 
since  become  familiar :  *  The  spelling-book 
was  laid  upon  the  shelf.  Spelling  was  learned 


ON   EDUCATION  207 

by  the  Quincey  children  in  the  same  way 
that  the  human  race  learned  to  talk,  by  writing 
correctly  and  continually.  Learning  by  heart 
condensed  and  dessicated  statements  in  geo- 
graphy and  history  was  to  some  extent 
eliminated.  Geography  began  with  the  real 
earth,  and  "mud  pies"  were  introduced.  .  .  . 
The  systematic  cultivation  of  selfishness  by 
bribery — per  cents.,  material  rewards,  and 
prizes — was  banished.  The  old-fashioned, 
stiff,  unnatural  order  was  broken  up.  The 
torture  of  sitting  perfectly  still  with  nothing 
to  do  was  ruled  out,  and  in  came  an  order 
of  work,  with  all  the  whispering  and  noise 
compatible  with  the  best  results.  The  child 
began  to  feel  that  he  had  something  to  do 
for  himself;  that  he  was  a  member  of  society, 
with  the  responsibilities  that  accompany  such 
an  important  position/  In  order  to  test  the 
results  of  this  new  departure,  and  to  answer 
criticisms,  an  examination  was  held  through- 
out the  schools  of  the  county,  town  by  town. 
The  examination  was  in  the  three  R's,  geog- 
raphy, and  history.  The  results  were  pub- 
lished in  pamphlet  form,  and  Quincey  had 
by  far  the  highest  percentage,  leading  in  every- 
thing except  mental  arithmetic,  and  in  that 
it  stood  third  or  fourth.  One  member  of  the 


208  MODERN  VIEWS 

Quincey  Schools  Committee  gave  $500  to 
have  specimens  of  the  penmanship,  the 
composition,  and  the  number  work  litho- 
graphed. The  force  that  proved  so  successful 
at  Quincey  is  the  same  the  world  over.  It 
is  the  life  and  power — and  faith  in  the  life 
and  power — of  the  child.  'Life,'  as  such 
different  men  as  Nietzsche  and  Thring  have 
taught  us,  'is  whatever  may  surpass  itself.' 
And  to  humanity,  says  Nietzsche,  is  ceaselessly 
addressed  the  maxim  ;  '  Become  what  thou 
art.' 

2.  Education  as  Co-operation  with  the 
Child's  Native  Endowment. — What  the  child 
cannot  learn  we  cannot  teach  him.  In  all 
probability  the  world  will  wake  up  some  day 
to  the  waste  of  time  of  which  it  has  been 
guilty  in  trying  to  teach  things  which  the 
child  was  not  ready  to  learn.  Nature  deter- 
mines times  and  seasons  in  a  way  that  no 
educational  Code  or  School  Committee  can 
control.  Water  will  no  more  flow  uphill, 
than  real  knowledge  into  an  unready 
mind. 

The  fact  that  native  or  instinctive  tenden- 
cies are  the  base  on  which  the  whole  fabric 
of  acquired  knowledge  and  power  is  built  is 
now  so  universally  admitted  that  the  reference 


ON  EDUCATION  209 

Here  may  be  of  the  briefest.  One  or  two  per- 
fectly general  points  may  be  mentioned, 
because  of  their  importance  to  the  child  both 
now  and  in  his  later  youth  and  manhood. 

One  fact  to  be  noted  in  this  connection  is 
that  though  instinct  is  given  in  its  tendency 
and  direction,  the  force  of  its  play  depends 
largely  upon  bodily  nutrition  and  vigour. 
From  him  that  hath  not  is  taken  away  even 
that  which  he  hath.  A  richly-endowed 
organism  will  function  but  feebly,  if  the  body 
is  insufficiently  nourished  with  suitable  food 
and  fresh  air.  The  effects  of  ill-nutrition  in 
childhood  are  very  far-reaching.  As  Rousseau 
said :  *  The  weaker  the  body  is,  the  more  it 
commands;  the  stronger  it  is,  the  better  it 
obeys.'  From  health  and  vigour  of  body 
spring  the  love  of  life;  and  'love  of  life  is 
the  foundation  of  moral  health.' 

A  second  general  consideration  is  one  which 
has  to  do  with  the  effects  of  school.  The 
school,  almost  unavoidably,  puts  a  check 
upon  the  natural  activities  of  healthy  animal 
life.  This  is  noted  by  Professor  Darroch,  as 
by  many  others.  'Our  school  system,  which 
requires  that  the  child  should  restrain  his 
instinctive  tendencies  to  action,  and  for 
certain  hours  each  day  assume  a  more  or  less 


210  MODERN  VIEWS 

passive  and  cramped  attitude,  is  also  pre- 
judicial to  the  development  and  free  play  of 
the  organs  of  the  body  which  have  entrusted 
to  them  the  discharge  of  certain  functional 
activities.'  The  play-interval  during  each 
school  period  is  a  concession  in  the  right 
direction.  The  child's  instinctive  energies 
need  to  be  kept  active  if  school  work  is  to 
proceed  'smoothly,  without  stumbling,  and 
in  a  prevailing  way/  And,  further,  the 
basal  instinctive  life  needs  to  be  kept  strong 
in  man,  in  order  that  the  ever-increasing 
demands  made  upon  him  for  adaptation  may 
be  satisfactorily  met.  It  is  the  life  which  is 
strong  at  its  base  which  has  elasticity  and 
spring. 

Proofs  of  the  effects  in  school  life  and  work 
of  improved  physical  opportunities  are  always 
at  hand.  In  a  paper  read  at  the  International 
Health  Exhibition  as  far  back  as  1884,  an 
experiment  tried  by  the  late  Mr  Charles 
Paget,  at  one  time  Member  of  Parliament  for 
Nottingham,  was  described.  There  was  a 
village  school  on  his  estate  at  Ruddington. 
He  was  not  satisfied  with  the  general  progress 
which  the  boys  were  making,  and  he  provided 
for  them  a  large  garden.  The  boys  were  then 
divided  into  two  sections.  One  of  these 


ON  EDUCATION  211 

continued  to  do  the  ordinary  school  work;  the 
other  section  worked  in  the  school  only  half 
the  time,  devoting  the  other  half  to  working 
in  the  garden.  At  the  end  of  a  term  the 
gardening  boys  excelled  the  others  in  every 
respect — in  conduct,  in  diligence,  and  in 
lessons.  There  have  been  similar  results 
elsewhere.  Had  the  gardening  boys  only 
drawn  level  with  the  others,  who  of  us  is  in 
doubt  which  school  experience  he  would 
prefer  to  have  had  for  himself?  Something 
more  than  health  follows  from  a  well-developed 
physique.  Springs  of  ancestrally  stored-up 
energy  well  up  to  the  surface,  which  other- 
wise would  have  remained  below  the  surface 
and  been  lost.  These  springs  fill  the  reservoirs 
whence  personality  itself  is  sustained  and 
strengthened. 

A  true  education  is  to  a  large  extent  an 
evoking  and  utilising  of  instinct.  We  do  not 
impose  an  education;  we  conduct  an  educa- 
tion. The  word  education  does  not  mean, 
as  it  has  often  been  said  to  mean,  *  drawing 
out  from'  the  learner.  There  is  no  preposition 
'from'  either  in  the  English  or  in  the  Latin. 
To  'educate'  means  to  'bring  up*  or  Mead 
forth'  the  child.  We  do  this  by  respecting 
and  utilising  the  life  that  is  already  there, 


212  MODERN  VIEWS 

There  is  always  an  instinctive  life  that  is 
worth  developing.  And  we  do  not  really 
educate  until  we  both  find  the  child  and  care 
for  him.  The  very  way  that  some  teachers 
say  *  lads'  and  *  fellows/  and  others  'children,* 
is  educative  in  this  sense.  It  wakes  up  some- 
thing in  the  scholar,  because  it  is  a  conscious 
call  to  something  that  is  within  him;  it  calls 
out  the  instinctive  impulses  of  comradeship, 
the  readiness  to  be  and  to  do,  and  to  follow 
a  strong  lead. 

8.  Some  Specific  Physical  Conditions  affect- 
ing the  ChilcCs  Education. — That  there  are 
physical  conditions  which  radically  affect  the 
education  a  child  can  receive  is  a  fact, 
on  every  hand  admitted  and  allowed  for. 
The  Board  of  Education  sets  limits  to  over- 
crowding, and  makes  their  observance  a  con- 
dition of  its  grants.  But  much  more  needs 
yet  to  be  done  on  these  lines.  There  are  still 
very  many  class-rooms  far  too  small  for  the 
number  of  children  for  whom  seating  accom- 
modation is  found.  In  some  of  them  the 
teacher  has  not  reasonable  room  in  which  to 
stand  before  the  class.  Again,  how  often 
are  rows  of  children  to  be  seen  standing 
wearily  upon  the  forms  behind,  and  at 
the  sides  of  a  class,  in  order  to  have  a 


ON  EDUCATION  213 

satisfactory    view    of     what     is    going    on 
before  them? 

At  this  point,  too,  passing  reference  must 
be  made  to  a  severe  handicap  upon  the  work 
of  the  schools  which  might  with  ease  be 
remedied.  Many  of  our  town  and  city  schools 
are  built  right  up  to  the  street.  The  crowded 
rooms  make  it  necessary  to  have  the  windows 
open.  Yet  the  streets  often  have  granite 
setts  and  lumbering  traffic.  The  voice-strain 
upon  the  teachers,  the  ear-strain  upon  the 
scholars,  and  the  distracting  effect  upon  all 
will  be  evident  to  the  most  casual  reader. 
It  is  right  that  a  more  noiseless  paving  should 
be  used  in  front  of  churches  which  are  used 
on  one  day  of  the  week  when  there  is  almost 
no  traffic.  Is  it  not  right  and  necessary  in 
the  case  of  the  schools  used  five  hours  each 
day?  Some  paving  committees  have  shown 
themselves  peculiarly  impervious  to  appeal. 
Yet  the  waste  of  the  Education  Committee's 
money  is  self-evident,  and  the  physical  injury 
to  teachers  and  the  hindrance  inflicted  upon 
scholars  are  allowed  to  continue.  With 
regard  to  street  cries  and  barrel-organ  playing 
under  school  windows  during  school  hours, 
the  chief-constable  and  Watch  Committee 
are  sometimes  willing  to  intervene. 


214  MODERN  VIEWS 

These  are  one  or  two  examples  by  the  way 
which  show  that  education  and  school  are  not 
quite  equivalent  terms.  There  are  conditions 
of  education,  some  of  them  entirely  public 
in  their  character  and  all  attainable,  without 
which  the  crowded  day  school  may  become 
a  centre  of  assorted  hardships  rather  than 
a  centre  of  human  power  and  life.  Yet, 
without  waiting  for  favourable  conditions, 
work  is  going  on  in  hundreds  of  schools  and 
school-rooms,  of  which  no  one  hears,  but  for 
which  the  world  is  unspeakably  richer.  By 
scholarly  tradition  in  Scotland,  by  comradely 
impulses  in  South  Britain,  and  in  many  other 
ways,  the  school  child's  teacher  is  in  many 
cases,  outside  of  his  own  family,  the  child's 
best  friend.  Opportunities  devised  by 
teachers  for  the  physical  training  and  welfare 
of  children  are  common  in  connection  with 
the  Elementary  schools  of  our  large  towns. 
Schools'  competitions  for  football  challenge 
cups  and  swimming  shields  are  in  this  way 
sustained;  and  even  school  caretakers,  who 
are  often  ex-army  men,  will  train  the  tug-of- 
war  squadron  from  their  school  for  the  annual 
sports.  Girls  and  boys  alike  are  frequently 
members  of  life-saving  societies,  and  some 
become  excellent  swimmers  before  they  reach 


ON   EDUCATION  215 

fourteen.  City  and  borough  councils  are 
usually  eager  to  co-operate.  For  example, 
in  Manchester,  schoolboys  under  thirteen  who 
can  swim  eight  lengths  of  the  bath,  and  boys 
under  fourteen  who  can  swim  twenty  lengths, 
are  given  free  swimming  tickets  for  twelve 
months  by  the  Corporation. 

With  respect  to  our  secondary  schools,  the 
tendency  to  criticise  the  devotion  of  scholars 
and  teachers  to  invigorating  games  may  easily 
run  to  extremes.  Other  things  being  equal, 
the  master  or  mistress  who  is  keen  about 
games  is  obviously  preferable  to  the  one  that 
is  not.  And,  even  other  things  not  being 
quite  equal,  it  is  so.  We  have  been  told  till 
we  are  almost  mesmerised  into  believing  it, 
that  to  sit  at  one  end  of  a  log  with  a  Mark 
Hopkins  at  the  other  end  of  it  is  a  liberal 
education  in  itself.  We  can  surely  believe 
that  to  sit  before  a  master  or  a  mistress  of 
vigorous  physique,  with  the  stamp  of 
athleticism  upon  their  bearing  and  its  ring 
in  their  voice,  counts,  during  those  mysterious 
prophetic  years  of  adolescence  in  the  liberat- 
ing of  racial  instinct,  racial  health,  and 
personal  power.  British  women  teachers, 
and  the  girls  they  lead,  will  view  lightly  the 
preference  of  a  famous  danseuse  for  the 


216  MODERN  VIEWS 

ball-room  as  compared  with  the  hockey-field; 
they  will  not,  and  need  not,  believe  that 
success  in  the  latter  means  the  slightest  risk 
of  diminished  success  in  the  former;  and,  even 
if  it  did,  they  would  choose  the  way  of  power. 

Physical  power  is  the  basis  of  all  power.  It 
unlocks  the  floodgates  of  ancestral  strength; 
it  builds  together  sinew  and  fibre,  and  makes 
for  a  firmness  of  physical  texture  which  is 
one  of  nature's  ways  to  moral  strength,  and 
almost  its  counterpart.  It  quickens  vitality 
and  finds  courses  for  the  blood. 

It  needs  no  saying  that  efficiency-values 
and  equipment  for  vocation  of  whatever  kind 
run  along  these  lines.  The  early  co-ordina- 
tion of  sense  and  muscle  which  some  games 
imply,  and  the  habit  of  quick  decision  and 
corresponding  action  which  others  cultivate, 
are  valuable  as  preparatory  to  almost  all 
practical  pursuits.  Patriotic  appeals  for  the 
means  to  train  athletes  to  break  records  at 
the  Olympic  games  do  not  half  meet  the 
case.  The  less  we  depend  on  professionalism 
the  better.  It  is  the  steady  average  that 
avails,  and  to  this  steady  average  the  schools 
are  making  continuous  contribution.  The 
private  citizen  is  often  a  willing  helper.  Let 
him  but  see  the  truth  that  a  British  boy  needs 


ON  EDUCATION  217 

football  or  its  equivalent  almost  as  he  needs 
bread,  and  there  will  not  be  much  difficulty 
where  twenty-two  boys  can  be  got  together 
and  an  open  space  found  for  them  in  setting 
them  to  play.  For  its  complete  effect,  how- 
ever, physical  development  must  depend  upon 
something  more  purposive  than  play. 
'Labour/  says  Emerson,  'is  God's  education,' 
and  'he  only  is  a  sincere  learner,  he  only  can 
become  a  master,  who  learns  the  secrets  of 
labour.'  He  believes  that  this  holds  good 
even  for  the  literary  man,  and  that  'no 
separation  from  labour  can  be  without  some 
loss  of  power  and  of  truth  to  the  seer  himself.' 
Hence  the  value  of  all  kinds  of  purposeful 
manual  occupations  in  school-life,  in  work- 
shop and  class-room,  in  making  fences  and 
ditches,  pavilion-building,  hay-making,  and 
navvying. 

4.  Aspects  of  Intellectual  Education  in 
Relation  to  the  Child's  Development. — Con- 
siderations affecting  physical  education  apply 
as  often  as  not  to  the  child's  intellectual 
work.  Overcrowding,  for  example,  with  its 
lack  of  sufficient  fresh  air  and  of  space  for 
physical  freedom,  impairs  the  child's  mental 
activity.  It  means,  moreover,  a  loss  of 
individuality  and  of  the  liberty  to  learn. 
M.V.E.  K 


218  MODERN  VIEWS 

Again,  when  we  speak  of  physical  power  as 
the  basis  of  all  progress,  it  is  to  be  remembered 
that  the  brain  is  a  part  of  the  body.  It  is 
never  a  case  of  body  versus  brains.  Health, 
activity,  and  development  of  brain  are  one 
important  part  of  bodily  health,  activity,  and 
development.  As  Dr  Francis  Warner  tells 
us,  a  well-exercised  brain  tends  to  general 
vigour  and  to  longevity.  One  never  hears  of 
those  who  are  specifically  brain-workers  being 
'too  old  at  forty.' 

Some  of  the  criticisms  we  have  had  to 
consider  suggest  that,  alike  in  our  conception 
of  it  and  in  our  practice  concerning  it,  the 
intellectual  side  of  education  leaves  much  to 
be  desired.  Methods  of  teaching  are  certainly 
of  the  greatest  importance.  'Stupidity  may 
be  directly  cultivated,*  as  Professor  Wei  ton 
says,  'by  making  a  full  memory  of  facts  the 
one  thing  needful  in  school.  It  may  be 
cultivated  nearly  as  readily  by  calling  for 
no  real  effort  on  the  part  of  pupils.'  He  thinks 
the  last  is  one  of  the  very  prominent  dangers 
of  present-day  education,  arising  partly  from 
a  confusion  that  has  arisen  between  the 
interesting  and  the  amusing,  partly  from 
a  too  low  estimate  of  the  child's  powers, 
partly  from  a  desire  to  avoid  over-pressure. 


ON  EDUCATION  219 

'It  is  bad  learning/  he  adds,  'not  too  much 
learning  which  causes  over-pressure/  Simi- 
larly a  leading  expert  on  children's  diseases 
declares  that  minds  that  are  made  mere 
receptacles  for  knowledge  are  jerry-built,  and 
unable  to  withstand  the  tests  of  strain  and 
time.  Brain  fag  he  finds  frequently;  and 
the  chief  cause  of  it  is  learning  by  rote. 
Much  of  this  is  due  in  turn  to  our  bondage  to 
examination  systems. 

Are  we  not  still,  in  a  wasteful  degree, 
examination-worshippers  ?  Some,  doubtless, 
have  felt  the  spur  and  have  been  quickened 
to  effofft.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  a  boy  may 
be  three  parts  of  a  duffer  in  one  direction  and 
three  parts  of  a  genius  in  another.  The 
examination  very  likely  meets  him  in  the 
'duffer'  direction — it  seldom  meets  such  a  one 
in  the  'genius'  direction,  how  can  it? — and  he 
is  in  a  fair  way  of  being  thwarted  and  dis- 
torted for  life. 

'But  there  are  children  who  will  not  learn; 
and  what  will  society  say  to  you  if  you  allow 
them  to  grow  up  ignorant?'  How  wise  the 
answer  :  'These  children  are  perhaps  craving 
to  learn  nine  things,  and  are  not  ready  for  the 
tenth,  which  is  forced  upon  them.  .  .  . 
Society  need  not  alarm  itself  ! ' 


220  MODERN  VIEWS 

Many  points  omitted  here  arise  in  con- 
nection with  school  grading  and  its  effect 
upon  the  life  of  the  child.  The  main  thing  to 
secure  is  the  continuity  of  the  educational 
process.  Breaks  of  any  kind  are  attended  with 
arrest  of  progress  and  real  loss.  At  no  stage 
in  the  child's  school  experience  is  this  kind 
of  break  more  common  than  when  he  moves 
up  from  the  infant  school  to  the  elementary. 
The  following  suggestion,  which  came  to  the 
writer  recently  from  an  otherwise  unknown 
head  teacher  has  very  much  to  commend  it: — 
'There  appears  to  be  in  most,  if  not  all,  of 
our  schools  a  gap  between  the  Infant  School 
and  the  Upper  Department,  and  the  difficulty 
is  how  best  to  bridge  over  this  gap.  My 
suggestion  is  to  have  for  the  lowest  group  of 
children  in  the  Upper  Department  a  skilled 
infant  teacher  (A).  There  would  also  be 
an  equally  skilled  infant  teacher  (B)  with  the 
upper  section  of  children  in  the  Infant  School. 
When  the  transfer  takes  place,  B  would  go 
with  the  children  and  continue  their  education 
in  the  upper  department  for  one  year, 
gradually  dovetailing  their  work  and  co- 
ordinating it  with  that  of  the  upper  depart- 
ment. A  meanwhile  would  take  the  place  of 
B  in  the  Infant  School,  and  after  training 


ON  EDUCATION  221 

another  group  of  infants  for  a  year,  would 
similarly  be  transferred  with  the  children  at 
the  end  of  the  year's  course.  A  and  B  would 
thus  alternately  be  a  year  in  the  Infant 
Department  and  a  year  in  the  upper  school, 
and  each  would  have  charge  of  one  set  of 
children  for  two  years  until  the  gap  was 
bridged  and  the  work  of  the  two  departments 
co-ordinated.  I  take  a  simple  case  of  trans- 
ferring one  group  of  children.  In  large  schools 
where  two  or  three  groups  are  transferred,  there 
would  necessarily  be  two  or  three  A  teachers 
to  interchange  with  the  same  number  of 
B  teachers.' 

This  is  only  one  of  the  many  details  of 
school  grading,  the  effects  of  which  are  daily 
impressing  themselves  upon  the  child  and 
doing  much  to  determine  his  intellectual 
progress. 

5.  Some  Ethical  Aspects  of  School  Life. — 
Physically  and  intellectually,  as  we  have 
seen,  education  finds  its  only  secure  founda- 
tions in  instinct.  The  active  impulses,  and 
the  impulses  to  sense-activity,  to  curiosity, 
and  to  general  mental  activity1  are  the  bases 
of  physical  and  intellectual  development 
respectively.  Right  behaviour,  too,  has  its 

1  See  the  Unfolding  of  Personality,  Chaps.  III.  and  IV. 


222  MODERN   VIEWS 

roots  in  instinctive  tendency.  It  is  true,  of 
course,  to  say  that  education  has  another 
part  to  play  than  that  of  utilising  and  develop- 
ing instinct.  It  has  to  direct  and  to  curb. 
And,  further,  it  has  to  do  what  the  child  with 
difficulty  learns  to  do  by  himself — namely, 
strengthen  the  weak  points.  '  There  are,  and 
will  be  again,  idle,  ignorant,  and  even  stupid 
boys.  Are  they  to  be  turned  out  on  the  shore? 
or  is  it  our  business  to  make  the  best  of  them  ? 
Every  one  who  wishes  to  be  a  teacher  will 
answer,  "We  must  make  the  best  of  them." 
Be  it  so.  But  this  means  that  the  vast 
majority  must  have  individual  attention, 
and  be  looked  to  singly,  and  that  there  must 
be  proper  machinery,  and  proper  structure 
and  plan,  to  make  this  individual  attention 
possible.  Innocent  looking  sentences,  but 
holding  in  themselves  the  seed-power  of  a 
world.  Given  a  stupid  boy,  make  him  an 
efficient  worker/  So  Thring  proceeds  with 
his  workman's  hints  on  teaching  work  till  he 
reaches  'the  first  article  of  the  teacher's  creed  : 
"Work  from  the  inside  outwards." 

The  general  rule  in  moral,  as  in  all  other, 
education  is  that  the  boy  provides  the  energy; 
we  have  to  teach  him  how  to  apply  it.  'A 
boy,'  said  an  advocate  of  the  work  of  the 


ON   EDUCATION  223 

Playground  Association,  cis  a  steam  boiler, 
and,  like  the  steam  boiler,  he  has  a  safety 
valve;  if  you  sit  on  that  and  hold  it  down, 
you'll  have  mischief.'  There  are  very  few 
teachers  who  have  not  a  real  liking  for  the 
boy  with  some  mischief  in  him.  There  is 
more  than  a  touch  of  pride  in  vigorous  boy- 
hood in  the  way  in  which  they  often  speak 
of  a  boy  in  their  class  as  'a  terror,  I  can  tell 
you.'  There  are  wild  traits  even  in  tame 
animals;  primitive  manifestations  in  every 
healthy  child;  and,  somehow,  we  wish  them 
there. 

Before,  therefore,  we  have  the  key  to  the 
problem  of  moral  education,  we  shall  have 
to  place  side  by  side  the  two  facts  :  the  first, 
that  there  are  wild  elements  in  the  child, 
and  the  second,  that  modern  life  tends  to  be 
tamer  than  the  people  who  have  to  live  it. 
There  is  something  in  the  child  that  will  out. 
For  his  health's  sake,  in  every  sense,  it  must 
out.  Direct  contact  with  earth;  delving, 
pile-driving,  building,  boy  and  girl  scouting 
help  to  tame  young  lives  without  over-taming 
them.  Many  of  the  sins  of  childhood  are  the 
result  of  a  life  without  sufficient  outlet  for 
the  spirit  and  adequate  exercise  of  strength. 
Is  it  not  a  false  psychology  which  thinks  that 


224  MODERN  VIEWS 

the  child  needs  to  be  drilled  and  hardened 
into  readiness  for  the  fight?  School  work,  say 
some,  should  contain  things  that  are  dull  and 
repellant,  that  are  against  the  grain,  so  that 
the  child  shall  be  prepared  to  face  the  diffi- 
culties of  after  life?  Is  it  not  rather  true  that 
the  readiness  to  spring  is  already  there,  and 
that  there  is  this  imminent  danger  in  repres- 
sive methods  that  we  shall  drive  the  boy  back 
upon  himself,  and  damage  the  spring? 

The  exhilarating  teacher  is  the  one  who 
really  disciplines,  for  he  sets  free  the  life. 
He  creates  a  habit  of  springing  to  the  attack, 
of  welcoming  occasions  to  put  forth  effort, 
and  gives  his  scholars  the  pleasure  of  dis- 
covering their  own  strength?  There  is  no 
'soft  pedagogy'  about  this.  It  is  the  art  of 
the  free  setting  others  free.  It  is  personality 
displaying  itself  in  the  liberating  and 
strengthening  of  other  personalities.  Lord 
Londonderry  testified  to  the  reality  of 
school-power  in  this  sense  in  an  address  to 
the  Chief  Inspectors  of  Elementary  Schools 
shortly  after  his  appointment  as  Minister  of 
Education.  'He  wished,'  he  said,  'to  draw 
attention  to  the  fact  that  all  does  not  depend 
upon  equipment.'  .  .  .  There  are  many 
village  schools  in  England,  most  probably 


ON  EDUCATION  225 

many  of  them  well  known  to  you,  which  do 
not  possess  the  latest  system  of  desk,  which 
do  not  possess  the  best  lighting  and  heating, 
which  do  not  possess  large  cloak-rooms  and 
hat-pegs,  or  accommodation  like  some  of  the 
large  Board  Schools  in  London;  and  yet  I  feel 
sure  that  none  of  you  will  contradict  me  when 
I  say  that  these  village  schools,  incomplete 
as  they  are  compared  with  others  with  respect 
to  equipment,  are  giving  the  very  best  educa- 
tion to  those  children  who  receive  education 
within  their  walls,  and  fitting  them  for  their 
future  career  in  life.  ...  It  is,  to  my  mind, 
because  the  teacher  is  in  absolute  sympathy 
with  the  interests  of  the  children  in  his  or 
her  charge.'  This  is  moral  education.  It  is 
reaching  the  child,  and  encouraging  him  in 
the  consciousness  and  in  the  use  of  his  own 
life-power. 

How  little,  when  we  come  to  consider  it, 
there  often  is  in  a  child's  life  to  stir  the  spirit 
of  adventure !  How  much  that  tends  to 
half  smother  the  boy,  instead  of  heating  his 
enthusiasm  and  quickening  the  courage- 
impulse  !  True,  we  see  problems  set  for  home 
work  which  require  pluck  to  tackle  by 
oneself ;  true,  also,  the  courage  which 
steadily  faces  task  and  duty  is  courage  in 


226  MODERN   VIEWS 

its  most  ultimate  and  abiding  form.  But 
a  boy  or  girl  needs  a  fair  background  of 
stimulating  experience  before  real  pluck  is 
brought  to  bear  in  school  work.  Perhaps  in 
every  way,  even  in  the  way  of  intellectual 
leadership,  the  greatest  teacher  is  not  the  one 
who  has  most  learning,  but  the  teacher  of  the 
really  bravest  spirit.  There  is  contagion  in 
courage,  as  'iron  sharpeneth  iron.'  And  often 
the  so-called  bad  boy  only  'needs  some  one 
to  start  the  machinery  of  his  life  into  opera- 
tion.' There  is  no  work  so  utterly  good  in 
itself  as  this.  Other  forms  of  ameliorative 
work,  even  the  highest,  are  almost  haphazard 
enterprises  compared  with  the  daily  hand-to- 
hand  persistent  work  of  the  school  with  the 
child.  The  strength  of  society  is  not  alone 
in  the  few  who  pose  before  us  as  its  pillars; 
it  is  rather  in  the  individual  lives  of  its  indi- 
vidual citizens  whose  personality  has  been 
wrought  upon,  in  its  strength-centres  dis- 
covered, and  in  the  building  up  of  an 
assured  personal  life  around  those  centres 
commenced,  at  school. 

6.  The  Home  and  its  Influence  upon  the 
Child  at  School. — Between  the  child's  in- 
school  and  out-of-school  environment  there  is 
constant  interaction.  It  is  desirable  that  this 


ON   EDUCATION  227 

interaction  should  be  harmonised  for  tke 
child's  sake.  For  this  a  good  mutual  under- 
standing between  parents  and  teachers  is  the 
first  essential.  Modern  educational  opinion  is 
converging  in  this  direction.  A  great  need — 
amongst  the  greatest  educational  needs  of 
the  hour — is  to  bring  the  parents  of  the 
scholars  into  line  with  the  work  of  the  schools  : 
first,  to  know  it;  secondly,  to  sympathise 
with  what  is  right  and  good  in  it;  thirdly, 
to  support  it,  by  reinforcing  its  influence 
upon  the  child  through  the  influences  of  the 
home;  fourthly,  so  far  to  understand  the 
aims  of  the  school  and  its  teachers  as  to  be 
able  to  meet  the  latter  in  fruitful  conference 
at  periodical  parents'  evenings,  or  at  recep- 
tions, at  which  there  may  be  an  exhibition  of 
school  work,  held  either  by  one  or  two  classes 
or  by  the  whole  school.  The  refining  effect 
which  this  custom  would  have  in  some  day- 
school  districts,  where  at  first  glance  one 
would  speak  of  it  as  impracticable,  might 
be  a  surprise  to  many.  The  Houses  of  Child- 
hood show  how  a  spirit  of  this  kind  works. 
A  good  effect  upon  the  children  and  their 
general  attitude  to  the  school  would  be  sure 
to  follow. 

Often  it  is  not  the  school  life  alone  which  is 


228  MODERN  VIEWS 

affecting  the  child's  progress.  Cases  of  over- 
pressure, leading  to  enfeebled  vitality  and 
cases  of  backwardness,  often  have  their  source 
outside  the  school  in  the  conditions  of  the 
home  life,  and  the  responsibilities  children 
bear  when  out  of  school.  If  the  nation  knew 
what  head  teachers  could  tell  them  of  children 
who  come  to  school  tired  out  and  unfit  to 
learn,  a  crusade  of  some  sort  would  almost 
certainly  be  started.  Minding  the  shop, 
minding  the  baby  (each  of  these  for  practically 
the  whole  time  the  child  is  out  of  school), 
going  on  a  milk  round,  or  a  newspaper  round, 
acting  as  errand-boy  before,  between,  and 
after  school  hours,  to  the  loss  now  and  then 
of  the  time  for  a  meal !  Things  like  this  are 
to  be  found  in  schools  and  in  districts  where 
it  would  have  been  but  little  suspected.  And 
yet  the  nation's  savings  bank  is  the  child. 

In  one  important  way  the  nation  has  come 
to  the  child's  rescue.  It  is  idle  to  talk  of 
the  life-force  of  the  absolutely  hungry  child. 
The  inner  life  of  the  unfed  child  cannot  reveal 
itself.  The  hungry  child  cannot  learn.  He 
has  no  strength  with  which  to  be  good.  As 
there  are  many  insufficiently-fed  children  in 
our  schools,  either  through  carelessness  or 
absolute  poverty  in  the  home,  it  will  be  the 


ON  EDUCATION  229 

common  wish  that  the  fullest  effect  should  be 
given  to  the  beneficent  Education  (Provision 
of  Meals)  Act  of  1906. 

7.  The  Child  leaving  School— Tacitly,  the 
school  makes  a  contract  with  the  community 
in  the  name  of  each  individual  child  to  give 
him  a  certain  equipment  of  knowledge  and  of 
power  for  use  in  his  after-school  life. 

Much  is  being  said  about  school-leaving 
certificates;  indeed,  votes  are  being  taken  on 
Education  Committees  as  to  whether  or  not 
they  shall  be  instituted  in  the  schools  they 
control.  It  is  very  easy  to  imagine  conditions 
under  which  a  guarantee  of  attainments  at 
the  close  of  the  elementary  school  course 
might  have  the  advantages  which  the  late 
Sir  Joshua  Fitch  was  one  of  the  first  in  this 
country  to  claim.  The  method  is  in  use  in 
France,  and  is  there  believed  to  strengthen  the 
teachers'  hands,  and  at  the  same  time  to  be 
appreciated  by  parents.  It  is  also  a  sort  of 
guarantee  to  employers.  But,  as  things  are 
in  our  elementary  schools  to-day,  serious 
risks  would  be  incurred  which  might  easily 
outweigh  all  possible  advantages.  There 
would  be  a  risk  of  false  emphasis  upon  formal 
memoriter  work;  and  also  of  a  recurrence  of 
some,  at  least,  of  the  evils  attendant  upon  the 


230  MODERN   VIEWS 

old  system  of  examination  before  making 
school  grants.  Our  elementary  schools  are 
but  just  beginning  to  accustom  themselves  to 
individual  liberty  in  the  matter  of  the  school 
time-table;  and  the  establishment  either  of 
local  or  national  leaving  certificates  would 
almost  inevitably  tend  to  a  return  to  uni- 
formity. The  first  need  is  an  extension  of  the 
principle  of  freedom  in  the  schools  and  through- 
out the  classes  of  the  schools.  If  within  each 
school  a  plan  of  promotion  could  be  devised 
whereby  for  those  not  passing  up  into  a 
higher  elementary  (or  central)  or  secondary 
school  a  supplementary  or  pre-trade  course 
were  available,  and  a  merit  certificate  granted 
to  those  who  earned  promotion  to  this  course 
and  passed  satisfactorily  through  it — the 
advantages  of  a  primary  leaving  certificate 
would  be  gained  without  the  serious  dis- 
advantages which  a  mere  examination  would 
entail.  This  is  the  Scottish  method  of 
awarding  the  'merit  certificate/  as  already 
described. 

London  and  Manchester  have  leaving  certifi- 
cates from  their  central  (higher  elementary) 
schools,  the  examinations  for  which  are  con- 
ducted by  the  inspectors  of  the  respec- 
tive education  committees.  The  need  for 


ON  EDUCATION  231 

secondary  school  (leaving)  certificates  is  vari- 
ously voiced.  The  indefiniteness  of  the  range 
of  secondary  education  raises  a  difficulty 
which  some  propose  to  meet  by  the  granting 
of  two  certificates — a  lower  after  the  com- 
pletion of  a  full  four  years'  course  in  an 
approved  secondary  school;  a  higher,  after 
the  completion  of  a  further  more  advanced 
course  of  three  years.  The  Welsh  Inter- 
mediate Schools  have  an  elaborate  system  of 
progressive  certificates — possibly  too  elaborate, 
for  the  strain  which  it  entails  upon  the  school 
organisation  must  be  almost  excessive.  These 
schools  have  a  Junior  Certificate  (for  scholars 
under  sixteen)  awarded  for  adequate  know- 
ledge in  five  subjects  out  of  a  wide  range  of 
options ;  and  Commercial  and  Technical 
Certificates,  also  for  scholars  under  sixteen; 
a  Senior  Certificate  of  Matriculation  standard 
for  scholars  over  sixteen;  a  Higher  Certificate, 
awarded  by  examination  on  the  results  of 
work  a  year  in  advance  of  that  covered  by  the 
Senior  Certificate;  and  an  Honours  Certificate, 
requiring  a  still  further  year  of  work. 

That  any  scheme  of  leaving  certificate  needs 
careful  consideration  is  shown  by  French 
experience.  Sir  Joshua  Fitch  quotes  some 
wise  words  from  M.  Greard  in  connection 


232  MODERN  VIEWS 

with  the  French  primary  leaving  certifi- 
cate. M.  Greard  speaks  with  great  seriousness 
of  the  effects  in  some  cases  of  the  secondary 
school  leaving  examination  (the'baccalaur^af 
examination).  "Toute  leur  energie  cer^brale 
a  6t6  us£e  pendant  la  preparation  a  1'examen, 
et  quand  ils  arrivent  plus  tard  a  la  vie,  il  ne 
leur  reste  de  force  que  pour  de  modestes 
labeurs  en  vues  de  r&les  secondaires.'  Yet 
there  can  be  little  doubt  as  to  the  desirability 
of  a  scheme,  centrally  initiated,  and  admin- 
istered in  part  through  the  universities,  in 
part  through  secondary  school  inspectors,  and 
with  the  co-operation  of  the  schools,  which 
shall  not  depend  principally  upon  an  examina- 
tion spurt,  but  be  based  upon  skill  and  know- 
ledge gained  and  upon  reports  and  other 
evidence  (especially  the  scholars'  own  records) 
of  satisfactory  progress  throughout  the  school 
course. 

Another  point  of  contact  between  the 
school  and  the  scholar  leaving  it  is  the  interest 
so  commonly  taken  in  helping  the  scholar  to 
secure  employment.  In  many  cases  the  head 
teacher  devotes  a  great  deal  of  time  and 
thought  to  this  work.  There  are  heads  of 
schools  whose  idea  of  their  mission  is  to 
fit  their  scholars — sometimes  unpromising 


ON  EDUCATION  233 

children  in  slum  districts — for  a  niche  in  the 
world's  life,  and  find  the  niche  into  which  their 
scholars  fit.  This  is  exceedingly  valuable 
work.  And  whether  or  not,  as  some  think, 
the  schools  should  take  over  the  work  of  the 
Juvenile  Employment  Bureaux,  the  work 
done  by  the  school  should  be  more  widely 
recognised.  At  present  a  head  teacher  uses 
his  circle  of  acquaintance  and  personal  influ- 
ence, and  may  even  make  an  effort  to  get 
into  touch  with  employers.  But  he  has 
already  duties  enough  in  school;  and  the 
opening  of  doors  for  his  scholars  would  be 
eased  for  him  by  employers  applying  more 
commonly  to  the  schools  than  they  do.  A 
Juvenile  Employment  Bureau,  however  excel- 
lent the  intention  of  the  officer  in  charge, 
cannot  recommend  a  boy  with  the  same 
confidence  and  the  same  sense  of  responsi- 
bility as  his  own  schoolmaster. 

8.  The  Early  Days  of  the  After-school  Life. — 
The  child  who  has  left  school  and  commenced 
to  work,  say  at  fourteen  or  fifteen,  is  still  at 
a  critical  age.  His  character  is  far  from 
formed.  Actual  school  conditions  have  at 
times  tended  to  hold  his  life-energies  in 
suspense  rather  than  to  call  them  forth.  In 
any  case  his  habits  are  not  fixed  and  he  still 


234  MODERN  VIEWS 

needs  a  guiding  hand.  Accordingly,  many 
teachers,  in  addition  to  finding  their  scholars 
employment,  advise  them  as  to  ways  of 
continuing  their  education  and  improving  their 
prospects.  Every  teacher  has  a  chance  to 
become  great  in  his  last  five  minutes  with 
a  lad  at  school.  But  when  the  teacher  has 
done  all  within  his  power,  a  considerable 
amount  of  following  up  is  necessary  in  many 
cases.  Especially  in  the  poorest  districts, 
where  parents,  unless  reminded  of  their 
responsibility,  are  likely  to  be  careless  and 
forgetful,  it  is  important  to  see  that  the  boy 
and  his  parents  know  exactly  what  is  the 
probable  future  of  the  line  of  work  chosen; 
also  that  some  one  should  keep  a  friendly  eye 
on  the  boy  during  the  first  year  or  two  that 
he  is  at  work.  This  is  part  of  the  work  under- 
taken by  the  London  Care  Committees. 
Whilst  it  is  known  that  a  boy  or  girl  who  has 
had  a  careful  send-off  from  school  will 
possibly  select  one  or  two  Evening  School 
courses,  and  supplement  these  by  member- 
ship of  a  boys'  or  girls'  club  or  Scout  corps, 
there  is  still  ample  room  for  voluntary 
agencies,  like  that  of  the  Care  Committee,  to 
take  the  young  worker  in  hand. 

The    organisation    of    the    London    Care 


ON  EDUCATION  235 

Committees  was  initiated  by  the  London  County 
Council  after  the  passing  of  the  Education 
(Provision  of  Meals)  Act  in  1906.  Invitations 
were  sent  out  to  the  voluntary  societies 
already  at  work,  either  amongst  children  or 
in  the  relief  and  uplifting  of  the  poor,  and 
a  Central  Children's  Care  Sub-committee  was 
formed  largely  from  those  nominated  by 
these  societies.  Each  elementary  school,  as  a 
result  of  this,  is  now  under  a  Care  Committee, 
whose  duties  are  to  provide  school  meals, 
to  follow  up  the  medical  officer's  cases  into  the 
homes  of  the  scholars  by  the  visits  of  a  nurse 
or  of  a  lady-member  of  the  committee,  and  to 
exercise  a  helpful  oversight  over  the  early 
working  years,  both  by  endeavouring  to  find 
suitable  employment  and  by  encouraging  the 
young  people  to  make  the  most  of  their 
opportunities.1  In  some  schools  play  centres 
and  'happy  evenings'  have  been  started,  or 
where  they  already  existed  have  received 
new  stimulus. 

A  further  question,  and  one  which  is  promi- 
nently in  the  minds  of  leading  educationists, 
is  that  of  the  compulsory  attendance  of 

1  The  regular  visitation  by  voluntary  workers  does 
much  to  save  children  from  neglect.  Often  "the  parents 
have  not  known  what  was  neglect,'  but  have  regarded  some 
of  childhood's  common  scourges  as  inevitable ! 


236  MODERN  VIEWS 

children  over  fourteen  at  a  continuation 
school.  The  city  of  Glasgow,  for  instance, 
availing  itself  of  the  permissive  clauses  in  the 
Education  (Scotland)  Act  of  1908,  has  had 
by-laws  in  force  since  1910,  requiring  the 
attendance  at  continuation  classes  of  young 
persons  between  fourteen  and  seventeen  years 
of  age.  It  is  anticipated  that  this  will  affect 
about  eight  thousand  children.  Attendance 
is  required  for  at  least  two  evenings  in  each 
week,  a  third  evening's  attendance  being 
optional.  The  rule  applies  to  all  young 
persons  over  fourteen  years  of  age  who 

(1)  have  not  completed  two  years  attendance 
in  a  supplementary  course,  or  its  equivalent; 

(2)  have  not  obtained  a  certificate  of  merit; 

(3)  are   not   otherwise   receiving   a   suitable 
education;  or  (4)  are  not  specially  exempted. 
These  pupils  are  compelled  to  attend  school 
on  at  least  two   evenings   per   week.     The 
compulsory    subjects    are    English    and    the 
practical  side  of  instruction,  such  as  wood- 
work and  drawing  for  boys,  and  cookery  and 
laundry  work  for  girls.        Already  a  prosecu- 
tion for  non-compliance  has  been  successfully 
carried  through  by  the     city  School  Board. 
Altogether,  as  shown  in  the  Report  (1911-12) 
of  the  Committee  of   Council  on  Education 


ON  EDUCATION  237 

in  Scotland,  sixteen  School  Boards  have 
passed  by-laws  requiring  attendance,  and  over 
six  hundred  authorities  provide  continuation 
classes.  Germany  has  a  law  similar  to  that  of 
Scotland.  Attendance  at  a  continuation 
school  is  not  obligatory  throughout  the 
country,  but  individual  states,  or  districts,  or 
municipalities  have  the  power  to  make  such 
attendance  compulsory  up  to  the  age  of 
eighteen;  and  employers  must  give  facilities 
to  employees  under  this  age  to  attend  the 
classes. 

The  demand  for  continuation  schools  has 
arisen  from  the  self-evident  fact  that  the 
three  ends  of  education — power  in  work, 
capacity  for  citizenship,  and  a  well-knit 
personality — are  not  and  cannot  be  attained 
during  the  elementary  school  period.  The 
good  school  has  during  this  time  awakened 
impulses,  but  these  have  not  as  yet  hardened 
into  habits.  The  various  articles  contributed 
to  Vice-Chancellor  Sadler's  invaluable  work 
on  Continuation  Schools  make  a  direct  plea 
in  favour  of  such  schools.  One  needs  but  to 
think  of  the  young  adolescent  with  still,  in 
some  cases,  consciousness  of  'escape'  from 
school,  feeling  his  own  freedom  and  a  certain 
self-dependence  as  a  wage-earner,  face  to 


238  MODERN   VIEWS 

face  with  the  chances  of  the  city  streets  and 
cheap  amusements  as  his  only  change  from 
work.  The  limits  of  the  educational  value 
of  the  picturedrome  are  soon  reached.  The 
youth  and  the  maid  of  fourteen  to  eighteen 
need  to  think  hard  and  to  have  some  ideal, 
else  their  real  nature  will  not  find  scope  and 
development.  It  is  the  period,  as  Canon 
Wilson  said,  during  his  head-mastership  of 
Clifton  College,  when  c  aspirations  rise  highest, 
when  reverence  is  most  natural,  when  good- 
ness and  greatness  are  most  inspiring,'  words 
as  true  of  the  young  worker  as  of  the  boys 
attending  a  great  public  school.  For  proof, 
which  cannot  here  be  quoted,  one  needs  but 
to  turn  to  such  books  as  Miss  Jane  Addams's 
wonderfully  appealing  Spirit  of  Youth  and  the 
City  Streets,  C.  E.  B.  Russell's  Manchester 
Boys,  or  Miss  McMillan's  The  Child  and  the 
State,  which  are  not  dream-studies  but  the 
outgrowth  of  years  of  daily  hand-to-hand 
contact  with  the  young  life  of  which  they 
treat. 

Clearly  here  is  an  educational  problem  of 
great  magnitude;  the  care  of  the  child  and 
the  youth  during  the  habit-forming  years. 
Might  one  not  even  say  the  defence  of  the 
child  and  the  youth?  For  whilst  we  are 


ON  EDUCATION  239 

allowing  him  to  find  his  own  way,  deadly 
attacks  are  made  upon  the  strongholds  of 
purity  within  him  and  upon  the  character 
that  was  beginning  to  form  as  a  result  of  the 
better  influences  that  had  been  brought  to  bear 
upon  him.  If  we  had  a  fiendish  foe  bent  upon 
the  downthrow  of  our  land,  no  deeper  plot 
could  be  laid,  surer  to  work  injury  and  havoc 
than  the  issue  of  some  of  the  vilely  illustrated 
papers  that  are  sold  for  a  halfpenny,  and 
some  of  the  unscrupulously  vulgar  post  cards 
displayed  in  thousands  of  windows.  No 
nation  can  lay  claim  to  freshness  of  spirit  or 
inner  strength  which  tolerates  these  incite- 
ments to  the  worst  behaviour,  this  daily  and 
open  lowering  of  ideals,  and  vulgarising  of 
heart  and  mind.  Here  is  a  fight  to  be  fought 
with  no  hesitating  will.  Switzerland,  as 
Canon  Rawnsley  tells  us,  in  an  admirable 
protest  in  the  Hibbert  Journal,  passed  two 
years  ago  a  stern  law  against  publicly  offend- 
ing modesty  or  morality  by  'pictures,  writ- 
ings, speech,  or  actions.'  This  war  against 
the  undoing  of  the  nation's  educational  work, 
and  the  undermining  of  the  life  even  of  the 
child,  must  be  carried  into  the  enemy's  camp. 
But  when  the  best  is  done,  the  need  remains 
for  a  higher  and  a  continued  education  which 


240  MODERN  VIEWS 

shall  fortify  with  purposeful  labour  the  mind 
of  our  youth,  filling  and  firing  the  imagina- 
tion with  worthy  anticipation  and  with  some 
vision  of  man's  ideal. 

But  the  all-round  life  of  youth  must  also 
be  kept  in  view.  In  addition  to  intellectual 
effort  and  enkindled  imagination,  in  addition 
to  recreation  and  social  intercourse,  the 
robuster  traits  which  go  to  make  a  strenuous 
and  efficient  personality  must  have  exercise 
and  discipline.  It  would  be  difficult  to  con- 
ceive of  a  saner,  more  educative  discipline  of 
the  spirited  element  in  youth  than  the  Boy 
and  Girl  Scout  movements.  Many  a  too  tame 
boy  will  be  invigorated,  and  many  a  too 
vigorous  boy  be  tamed  by  this  fine  form  of 
purposive  adolescent  play.  Its  citizenship 
value  is  as  great  as  its  personal  value.  As 
General  Baden-Powell  says,  *  It  teaches  a  boy 
to  do  his  duty,  and  to  do  it  in  his  place.' 


ON  EDUCATION  241 

CHAPTER  X 

RESUME    OF   CONCLUSIONS 

1.  IN  a  survey  having  so  wide  a  reference, 
it  may  seem  almost  impossible  to  work  from 
and  to  lead  up  to  any  single  unifying  principle. 
Roughly,  however,  the  central  thought  and 
motif  of  the  views  presented  is  the  principle 
which  is  fundamental  in  education — namely, 
whether  in  organisation  or  in  teaching,  to 
respect  and  to  build  around  the  life  that  is 
already  there.  We  do  not  impose  an  educa- 
tion. We  conduct  an  education. 

2.  Almost    everything    depends  upon    the 
life  of  the  nation  itself,  and  upon  the  nation's 
own  view  of  its  life.     The  schools  bear  the 
impress  of  these  two  factors.     Fortunately 
not  of  the  latter  only;    for  a  nation's  life  is 
always  greater  than  the  nation  itself  realises. 
Yet  the  nation  that  believes  greatly  in  its  own 
life  will  believe  greatly  in  the  nurture  and  in 
the    expansion   of   that    life    by   means    of 
education. 

3.  The  same  principle,  to  respect  the  life 
that  is  already  there  and  build  around  it, 

M.V.E.  L 


242  MODERN   VIEWS 

governs  the  planning  of  school-work  from 
year  to  year;  and  our  devising  of  educa- 
tional ladders  from  school  to  school,  and  school 
to  college.  It  determines  our  treatment  of 
school  subjects  from  the  standpoint  of  their 
efficiency  or  life-development  value.  It 
decides  for  us  the  lines  along  which  vocational 
work  is  desirable  in  schools.  The  guiding 
principle  throughout  is  regard  for  the  present 
life  and  power  of  the  child  or  youth.  This 
is  not  neglecting  the  future.  It  is  the  surest 
way  of  safeguarding  it;  for  youth  is  in  its 
very  nature  anticipative.  For  practical  pur- 
poses the  very  instincts  of  the  child  are  more 
truly  viewed  as  the  germination  of  life-power 
within  him  than  as  mechanical  reproductions 
of  racial  habits.  Adolescence,  e.g.,  means  the 
beginning  to  be  an  adult.  And  as  education 
proceeds,  the  more  the  school  can  avail  itself 
of  the  fund  of  energy  which  instinctive  ten- 
dencies supply,  the  better  and  more  natural 
will  be  the  education  given. 

Boy  nature  will  out.  Unless  it  does,  the 
man  can  never  grow  to  his  full  size.  Even 
the  hooligan  has  a  message.  He  tells  of  traits 
which  have  been  or  are  being  neglected,  and 
which,  because  of  this,  have  found  for  them- 
selves a  morbid  expression. 


ON   EDUCATION  243 

4.  Life  has  a  physical  core.    The  individual 
is  not  a  man  plus  a  body,  nor  a  man  in  a  body. 
We  do  not  derogate  from  the  high  claims  of 
spirit    by    emphasising    the    importance   (in 
terms  of  the   spirit  itself   even   the  sacred- 
ness)    of   the    bodily    life.      Every   kind   of 
strength  and  success  in  life  has  a  physical 
basis. 

5.  The  root  and  centre  of  the  intellectual 
life  is  the  instinct  of  curiosity.    *  Man  wants  to 
know :    when  he  ceases  to  want  to  know,  he 
ceases  to  be  man.'    This  must  be  the  govern- 
ing principle  in  our  choice  of  curricula,  and  in 
our  manipulation  of  them.     What  the  boy 
does  not  want  to  know  and  we  cannot  get 
him  to  want  to  know  is  somehow  in  its  wrong 
place.     It  may  have  many  things  to  com- 
mend it  to  us.    But  we  should  no  more  ask 
the  boy  to  learn  the  things  that  we  like  just 
because  we  like  them  and  see  something  in 
them,  than  we  should  ask  him  to  smoke  our 
best  cigars.    This  applies  to  our  way  with  the 
three   R's   formally,   instead   of   formatively 
treated;     to   our   determination   whether   or 
not  to  teach    an   unwilling   and  wholly  un- 
promising  boy   Latin;    and   to   our   general 
planning  of  a  child's  studies  and  drawing  up 
of   his   school   time-table.     For   this   is   the 


244  MODERN   VIEWS 

point.  It  is  not  a  programme  that  looks 
well,  includes  everything,  hits  with  this  or 
that  tenet  of  educational  theory;  it  is  the 
programme  that  is  capable  of  becoming  the 
boy's  programme  which  is  destined  to  be 
effectual  in  his  education.  One  or  two  points 
may  be  briefly  recapitulated. 

The  Scotch  Education  Department  deals 
shrewdly,  and  with  a  decisiveness  which  only 
sounds  indecisive,  with  the  three  R's  question. 
'At  no  time,'  says  the  Report  for  1911-12, 
'has  Primary  Education  been  regarded  in 
Scotland  as  simply  a  matter  of  instruction  in 
Reading,  Writing,  and  Arithmetic,  and  at  the 
present  time  less  than  ever  is  it  so  regarded. 
The  problem  is  how  to  use  the  various  subjects 
of  instruction  so  as  to  develop  all  the  faculties 
of  the  child,  to  elicit  his  sympathies.  Pro- 
vided the  art  be  skilfully  exercised,  proficiency 
in  Reading,  Writing,  and  Arithmetic  will  be 
secured  as  a  matter  of  course,  as  an  incidental 
result,  within  the  usual  limits  of  school  life 
in  the  case  of  normal  children.  But  to  aim 
at  this  incidental  result  principally  or  directly 
may  well  be  to  stultify  the  whole  educational 
process  without  securing  more  than  an  evanes- 
cent, because  mechanical  proficiency  in  the 
subjects  on  which  instruction  has  been 


ON   EDUCATION  245 

{Concentrated.  Still,  for  practical  purposes, 
Reading, Writing, and  Arithmetic  maybe  taken 
to  be  the  main  subjects  of  instruction  in  the 
Primary  School  curriculum.  All  the  others 
are  auxiliary,  to  be  regarded  as  valuable  for 
the  variety  of  means  they  offer  for  exercising 

,  the  intelligence  of  the  children,  rather  than 
for  the  amount  of  positive  knowledge  or  of 
proficiency  acquired,  even  although  that  may 
not  be  inconsiderable.  .  .  .  Nature  Know- 
ledge, Geography,  and  History  may  be,  and 
ought  to  be,  made  to  subserve  in  large  degree 
the  purposes  of  the  main  instruction  in 
English  and  Arithmetic,  and  instruction  in 
the  former  class  of  subjects  need  in  no  way 
interfere  with  the  attainment  of  proficiency 
in  the  latter.'  The  three  R's,  in  a  word, 
may  be  and  need  to  be  taught  partly  for 
practice  in  the  use  of  number  and  language, 
but  chiefly  as  an  accompaniment  of  real 
studies  and  as  instrumental  in  amplifying, 
clarifying,  and  defining  actual  ideas.  The 
scale  bumps  in  favour  of  the  boy's  three  R's, 
as  opposed  to  the  three  R's  of  the  adult. 

With  regard  to  the  classics,  nothing  that 
has  been  said  would  deny  their  value  to  those 
who  get  real  value  from  them.  No  transla- 
tion can  give  the  direct  flavour  of  one  of 


246  MODERN   VIEWS 

Cicero's  orations  or  of  the  Homeric  poems. 
But  the  modern  literature  of  European  nations 
contains  so  much  of  the  matter  and  spirit  of 
the  classical  literature  that,  considering  the 
importance  of  modern  literature  itself  which 
may  otherwise  be  neglected,  the  direct  study 
of  the  classics  may  well  be  made  optional. 
German,  as  even  some  advocates  of  the 
classical  studies  have  admitted,  might  be 
more  generally  recognised  as  an  alternative 
to  Latin.  It  ought  to  be  possible  for  a  student 
to  graduate  in  Arts  in  the  twentieth  century 
in  literatures  other  than  the  classical.  A 
classical  education  is,  on  the  whole,  far  more 
prone  to  exclude  a  sufficient  notice  of  modern 
problems  and  modern  life  than  is  a  modern 
education  to  exclude  reference  to  the  ideas 
and  histories  of  Greece  and  Rome. 

'If,'  says  Sir  Oliver  Lodge,  'intellectual 
reform  were  necessarily  hostile  to  our  schools* 
great  and  good  qualities,  it  would  be  too 
dearly  purchased;  but  I  am  convinced  it  is 
not  so.  I  do  not,  indeed,  credit  them  with 
the  whole  merit  of  their  produce  at  present; 
part  of  the  power  and  success  of  our  youth, 
when  cast  upon  their  own  resources  and  con- 
verted into  leaders  of  men,  is  due  to  their 
race  and  stock.  Given  a  good,  sound,  healthy 


ON   EDUCATION  247 

Briton,  and  you  have  a  great  instrument  for 
the  world's  work.  .  .  .  But  give  him  real 
education  as  well,  teach  him  what  can  easily 
be  now  taught  him  about  the  world  and  the 
forces  of  Nature,  cultivate  his  mind  so  that 
he  can  think  and  can  ascertain  truth  for 
himself — and  ...  he  would  have  his  powers 
enhanced  manyfold,  and  would  be  able  to 
hold  up  his  head  and  take  a  lead  in  the 
modern  wrorld.'  Equally  weighty  are  the 
words  of  the  late  Professor  Withers :  'If 
England  is  to  be  saved  from  the  fate  which 
seems  to  be  involved  in  her  defects,  must  not 
the  public  schools  take  the  foremost  place  in 
giving  to  those  who  ,?ill  in  a  few  years  be 
her  most  influential  citizens  a  systematic 
intellectual  equipment?' 

6.  The  same  principle  of  meeting  the  scholar 
on  his  own  ground  and  planning  for  him  an 
education  that  fits  him,  and  further  his  all- 
round  intellectual  development,  justifies  a 
wide,  as  distinguished  from  a  narrow  or 
a  specialised,  course  of  study.  The  following 
words  of  M.  Pecaut  are  the  more  striking  as 
they  occur  in  a  chapter  which  is  a  plea  for 
simplication.  (The  chapter  is  entitled  'Sim- 
plifions  ! '  It  is  chapter  xii  in  L* Education 
Publique  et  la  Vie  Nationale.)  *  Which  subject 


MODERN   VIEWS 

would  you  venture  summarily  to  erase?  .  .  . 
What  economy  should  we  take  it  upon  our- 
selves to  make,  if  we  were  left  free  to  re-cast 
the  whole?  Gymnastics?  our  national  his- 
tory? geography?  arithmetic?  geometry 
and  drawing  required  in  setting  out  and 
measuring  work  to  be  done  in  the  various 
trades?  the  elements  of  natural  science,  now, 
by  unanimous  consent,  a  condition  of  agri- 
cultural and  industrial  progress?  ideas  about 
agriculture?  Or  would  you  restrict  yourself 
in  respect  of  grammar,  reading,  French 
(English)  composition  on  familiar  topics? 
Would  you  silence  choral  singing?* 

None  the  less,  the  method  and  spirit  of 
the  teaching  remains  the  master-factor  in 
the  making  of  intellectual  strength.  The 
call  for  effort  on  the  learner's  part  in  shaping 
for  himself  the  thing  he  learns,  so  that  he  really 
masters  it  and  makes  it  his  own;  the  reaching 
of  the  individual  life  through  the  lessons  and 
the  quickening  of  natural  impulse  into  power; 
the  presence  and  leadership  of  a  teacher  to 
whom  life  '  means  intensely  and  means  good,' 
the  co-operation  with  class-fellows  in  the 
activities  of  learning — these  are  chief  among 
the  influences  which  make  school  lessons  a 
thing  of  life  and  power. 


ON  EDUCATION  249 

7.  The  conditions  of  to-day  point  towards 
man's  intellectual  progress.    New  discoveries 
of  the  nature  of  mind  and  new  faith  in  its 
powers;    fresh  and  vivid  appreciations  of  the 
value  of  knowledge,  as  no  longer  a  pursuit 
of  the  cloister  or  a  privilege  of  the  few;    a 
completer  faith  in  man,  arising  out  of  the 
blending   of   the   doctrines   of   individualism 
and  solidarity;  a  young,  new  day  with  a  glad 
and  confident  outlook  towards  the  future — 
these  are  conditions   favourable  to  a  great 
movement,  and  one  that  shall  deserve  to  be 
called,  in  the  words  of  Sir  H.  A.  Miers,  the 
'twentieth  century  Revival  of  Learning/ 

8.  References     to     moral     and     religious 
education   have   been   made   here   but  inci- 
dentally.   Much  has  been  crowded  out  in  this 
rapid  survey  which  would  have  had  place  in 
a  larger  work.    But  so  little  does  this  imply 
a  disregard  of  the  value  of  the  strengthening 
of  the  spirit  in  youth,  that  with  such  educators 
as  Arnold,  Thring,  Withers,  Wilson,  Sadler, 
Paton,  and  a  host  of  others,  to  support  the 
claim  (not  least,  the  weighty  voice  of  the 
President  of  the  National  Union  of  Teachers 
for  1912),  it  might  well  have  been  placed  first. 

Under  the  title  Rationalisme  el  Tradition, 
M.  Delvolve  has  recently  published  a  careful 


250  MODERN  VIEWS 

inquiry  into  the  effects  of  the  'lay  moral 
instruction*  in  France  as  compared  with  the 
earlier  traditional  religious  instruction.  He 
comes  to  the  conclusion  that  the  dynamic 
effect  of  the  new  teaching  upon  the  moral 
nature  of  the  scholars  is  inadequate.  And 
this  he  believes  to  be  because  it  fails  to  attach 
itself  to  any  *  living  centre'  within  the  child's 
nature,  'around  which  the  elements  of  the 
moral  life  group  themselves,  as  it  were, 
spontaneously,  as  an  organism  develops  from 
an  original  central  germ.'  The  traditional 
religious  teaching  had  such  an  organic  centre. 
There  is  ample  British  testimony  to  confirm 
this  view.  Canon  Wilson's  words  have 
already  been  quoted.1  Professor  Bompas 
Smith,  writing  on  boys  between  the  ages  of 
thirteen  and  sixteen,  says :  *  The  years 
between  twelve  and  fifteen  often  witness  a 
deepening  of  the  boy's  religious  experiences. 
.  .  .  There  are  many  boys  outwardly  careless, 
and  even  irreligious,  who  would  prove,  if  we 
knew  their  hearts,  to  be  at  times  deeply 
stirred  by  religious  motives.'  *  The  instinct  of 
the  young  soul  is  true,'  says  Canon  Wilson 
in  the  same  address.  'We  schoolmasters — 
who  as  a  class  are  highly  strung,  and  feel 
1  See  page,  238. 


ON  EDUCATION  251 

with  peculiar  intenseness  the  forces  of  the 
time — are  in  more  danger  than  any  other 
class  of  pressing  into  extremes  one  or  other  of 
the  two  axioms  of  education :  religion 
cannot  be  taught;  religion  must  be  taught* 
We  must  keep  both  constantly  in  view. 
Religion  cannot  be  taught.  Each  human 
soul  finds  it  for  itself.  .  .  .  But  that  other 
truth  must  be  equally  in  our  minds,  and  needs 
the  more  insisting  on.  As  the  young  soul 
grows  by  its  own  inner  vitality,  so  it  needs 
its  natural  food.  The  teacher  can  in  part 
supply  this.'  Mrs  Browning  relates  the 
teacher's  thought  and  life  with  the  thought 
and  life  of  the  learner  in  her  own  profound 
way  in  A  Rhapsody  of  Life's  Progress  :— 

With  Teachings  of  Thought  we  reach  down  to  the 

deeps 

Of  the  souls  of  our  brothers, 
And  teach  them  full  words  with  our  slow-moving 

lips, 
'God,'    *  Liberty,'    *  Truth,'    which    they   hearken 

and  think 
And  work  into  harmony,  link  upon  link. 

Then  we  hear  .  .  .  the  new  generations  that  cry 
I     attune  to  our  voice,  and  harmonious  reply, — 
'God,'  'Liberty,'  'Truth!' 


APPENDIX 

APPENDIX  TO   NOTE   ON  PAGE   152 

IN  many  places  the  courses  in  housewifery  are 
thoroughly  practical,  and  are  not  only  valuable 
to  the  girls,  but  are  greatly  enjoyed  and  appre- 
ciated by  them.  In  some  cases  a  neighbouring 
house — it  may  be  the  caretaker's  house — is 
adapted  for  the  purpose.  In  others  houses  have 
been  specially  built.  The  house  at  the  Stockport 
centre  is  built  between  the  senior  and  junior 
departments  of  the  school  (over  nine  and  under 
nine  years  respectively),  and  has  the  effect — at 
least  for  the  scholars  at  the  Alexandra  Park 
School — of  a  house  within  the  school. 

At  present  four  days  a  week  for  six  weeks  are 
given  to  the  work  of  housekeeping.  Next  year 
probably  the  full  school  time  (five  days)  will  be 
so  given. 

The  instruction  introductory  to  the  practical 
housekeeping  includes  : — Cleaning  of  linoleums, 
cleaning  of  paint  and  varnish;  bed  making,  care 
of  the  bed  and  bedding;  cleaning  of  flues, 
making  of  fires,  blackleading;  cleaning  of  silver, 
brass,  copper,  etc.;  care  of  glass;  care  of  sinks 
and  drains;  care  of  all  kinds  of  brushes;  clean- 
ing of  windows;  cleaning  of  carpets;  cleaning  of 
furniture;  care  of  wood;  cleaning  of  steps;  lay- 
ing of  dinner  and  tea  table;  order  of  washing  up 
dinner  and  tea  things;  care  of  larder  and  store- 
room. 

Twelve  to  fifteen  girls  over  twelve  years  of  age 
attend  the  centre  at  one  time,  and  are  divided  into 


APPENDIX 


253 


four  groups.     Each  group  works  a  week  at  each 
subject,  and  during  the  last  fortnight  this  arrange- 
ment is  continued,  with  the  addition  that  all  the 
girls  receive  instruction  in  spring-cleaning. 
The  time-table  is  as  follows  : — 


9.30-12.0 

1.30-2.30 

2.30-4.0 

Mon. 

General 

General 

Sewing. 

Housework. 

Housework, 

Tues. 

General 

General 

Sewing. 

Housework. 

Housework. 

Wed. 

General 

General 

Demonstra- 

Housework. 

Housework. 

tion. 

Thurs. 

General 

General 

Lecture. 

Housework. 

Housework. 

KITCHEN  GIRLS 
(Two  to  four  in  number). 

Monday. — Light  fire.  Shopping.  Prepare  dinner. 
Daily  clean  of  kitchen.  Weekly  clean  of 
storeroom.  Wash  up  dinner  things.  Make 
menu  for  Tuesday. 

Tuesday. — Same  daily  work  as  Monday.  Clean- 
ing of  dresser,  drawers,  and  cupboard. 

Wednesday. — Daily  work  as  Monday.  Weekly 
clean  of  larder. 

Thursday. — Daily  work  as  Monday.  Weekly 
clean  of  kitchen.  Cleaning  of  scullery  floor. 

BEDROOM  GIRLS 
(Usually  three  in  number). 


Monday. — Daily  work  in  1  and  2  bedrooms  and 
bathroom. 


254  APPENDIX 

Tuesday — Daily  work  in  bedroom  2  and  bath- 
room and  landing.  Weekly  clean  of  bed- 
room 1. 

Wednesday. — Daily  work  in  bedroom  1,  and 
bathroom,  etc.  Weekly  clean  of  bedroom  2. 

Thursday. — Daily  work  in  bedrooms.  Weeklv 
clean  of  stairs,  landing,  bathroom,  etc. 

SITTING-ROOM  GIRLS 
(Three  in  number). 

Monday. — Daily  clean  of  sitting  and  school 
rooms.  Cleaning  of  front  steps.  Setting 
dinner  table.  Waiting  at  table.  Clearing 
table.  Washing  silver  and  glass. 

Tuesday. — Work  as  above.  Weekly  clean  of 
schoolroom. 

Wednesday. — Work  as  Monday.  Weekly  clean  of 
sitting-room. 

Thursday. — Work  as  Monday.  Cleaning  cup- 
boards, silver,  etc. 

LAUNDRY  GIRLS 
(Four  in  number). 

Monday. — Preparation  for  washing.  Weekly 
wash. 

Tuesday. — Thorough  cleaning  of  scullery.  Fold- 
ing and  mangling  of  clothes. 

Wednesday. — Ironing  of  clothes. 

Thursday. — Washing  and  ironing  of  coloured 
covers.  Mending  of  clothes  in  wash. 

Lectures  and  demonstrations  are  given  in  the 
afternoon  during  the  course  on  : — Lamps,  beds, 
silver,  boots,  brushes,  sick-nursing,  care  of 
infants^  storeroom,  linen  cupboard,  etc. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

A.— ON    ORGANISATION,    ADMINISTRATION, 
AND  HISTORY 

GRAHAM  BALFOUR.  The  Educational  Systems  of 
Great  Britain  and  Ireland.  Second  Edition. 
Oxford  University  Press.  1903. 

VARIOUS  WRITERS.  Education  in  the  Nineteenth 
Century.  Cambridge  University  Press.  1901. 

J.  L.  HUGHES  and  R.  L.  KLEMM.  Progress  of 
Education  in  the  Century.  W.  &  R.  Chambers. 
1907. 

JOHN  CLARK.  The  Rise  and  Development  of  Scottish 
Education.  (Proceedings  of  the  Royal  Philo- 
sophical Society  of  Glasgow.  1910.) 

H.  B.  BURNS.  A  Century  of  Education.  Dent  &  Co. 
1908. 

Outline  of  the  History  of  Educational  Theories  in 
England.  George  Allen  &  Co.  1899. 

W.  R.  LAWSON.  John  Bull  and  His  Schools.  Black- 
wood.  1908. 

VARIOUS  WRITERS.  The  Public  Schools  from  Within. 
Sampson  Low  &  Co.  1900. 

T.  G.  COTTON  MINCHIN.  Our  Public  Schools  :  Their 
Influence  on  English  History.  Sonnenschein.  1901 . 

F.  PAULSEN.  German  Education,  Past  and  Present. 
Fisher  Unwin,  1908. 

F.  P&CAUT.  Quinze  ans  ffi  Education.  Delagrave, 
Paris. 


256  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

F.  PECAUT.    U Education  Publique  et  la  Vie  Nationale. 

Fourth  edition.    Hachette.    1911. 
J.    C.    TARVEB.     Debateable    Claims :     Essays    on 

Secondary  Education.    Constable.    1898. 
DE    GARMO.      Principles    of   Secondary    Education. 

Macmillan.    1907. 
NORWOOD  and  HOPE.    Higher  Education  of  Boys  in 

England.    Murray.    1909. 
AUSTIN   PEMBER.      Croesus   Minor.     Sonnenschein. 

1888. 
Lord  HALDANE.     Education  and  Empire.     Murray. 

1902. 

A.   FOUILLEE.     Education  from  a  National  Stand- 
point.    International  Education  Series.     Edward 

Arnold.    1892. 
DE  MONTMORENCY.     State  Intervention  in  English 

Education.    Cambridge  University  Press.    1902. 
C.  H.  THURBER.     The  Principles  of  Organisation 

A.  B.  Wood.    1901. 
W.  C.  GRASBY.    Teaching  in  Three  Continents.  Cassell 

&  Co.    1891. 


B.— ON  SCHOOL  AIMS  AND  METHODS 

BOMPAS   SMITH.      Boys  and  Their  Management  in 

School.    Longmans.    1905. 
ALEX.  DARROCH.     The  Children.    T.  C.  &  E.  C.  Jack. 

1907. 
ARNOLD    TOMPKINS.      School    Management.      Ginn 

and  Co.    1901. 
VICE-CONSUL  ERSKINE.  Education  in  Chicago.  Foreign 

Office.    Miscellaneous  Series.  No.  544.    1900. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  257 

Sir  J.  G.  FITCH.     Educational  Aims  and  Methods. 

Cambridge  University  Press.     1900. 
Sir  PHILIP  MAGNUS.    Educational  Aims  and  Efforts. 

Longmans.    1910. 
N.  M.  BUTLER.     The  Meaning  of  Education.    Mac- 

millan.     1898. 
Sir  HENRY   A.   MIERS.      The  Revival  of  Learning. 

(An  Oration.)     London  University  Union.     1909. 
MATTHEW  ARNOLD.    Reports  on  Elementary  Schools. 

Board  of  Education  Edition.     1908. 
P.    A.    BARNETT.     Common    Sense    in    Education. 

Longmans.     1899. 

JOHN  DEWEY.    The  School  and  the  Child.    (Ed.  Find- 
lay.)    Blackie.    1906. 
M.  E.  BOOLE.     The  Logic  of  Arithmetic.    Clarendon 

Press.    1903. 
M.  E.  BOOLE.    Preparation  of  the  Child  for  Science. 

Clarendon  Press.    1904. 

Papers  on  Moral  Education.    (Report  of  First  Inter- 
national Moral  Education  Congress.)    Nutt.    1909. 
JOHN  DEWEY.     The  School  and  Society.   P.  S.  King 

and  Son.    1901. 
J.  J.  FINDLAY.    The  School :   An  Introduction  to  the 

Study  of  Education.    Home  University  Library. 
J.  WELTON.     Principles  and  Methods  of  Teaching. 

Clive.     1906. 
Report   on   Moral  Education   in   American   Schools. 

(Vol.  X.  of  Special  Reports  on  Educational  Subjects.) 

1902. 
Publications  of  the  English  and  Scottish  Education 

Departments. 


258  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

C— ON   INDUSTRIAL  AND  VOCATIONAL 
EDUCATION 

W.     A.     BALDWIN.      Industrial- Social     Education. 

Milton  Bradley.    1907. 
JOHN   SEATII.     Education  for  Industrial  Purposes. 

The  King's  Publisher,  Toronto.     1911. 
MARGARET      MCMILLAN.       Education     through     the 

Imagination.   Sonnenschein  (now  Geo.  Allen  &  Co.) 

1904. 
D.  SNEDDEN.    The  Problem  of  Vocational  Education. 

Houghton  Mifflin  Co.     1910. 
Education  and  Industry  in  the    United  States;   and 

P.  J.  HARTOG  on  Commercial  Education.    (Special 

Reports,  Vol.  XI. 
FABIAN  WARE.     Educational  Foundations  of  Trade 

and  Industry.    Harpers.    1901. 

D.— ON  THE  PART   PLAYED   BY   THE 
SCHOLAR   IN   HIS   EDUCATION 

Dr  MARIA  MONTESSORI.     The  Montessori  Method. 

(Translated  by  ANNE  E.  GEORGE.)     Heinemann. 

1912. 
The  Montessori  System  of  Education.     (Educational 

Pamphlets,  No.  24.)    Board  of  Education.     1912. 
EDMOND  HOLMES.     What  Is  and  What  Might  Be  : 

A  Study  of  Education  in  General,  and  of  Elementary 

Education  in  Particular.     Constable  &  Co.     1911. 
B.  DEMOLINS.     Anglo-Saxon  Superiority  :  To  what 

if  is  due.     (Translated.)    The  Leadenhall  Press. 

1898. 
CECIL  REDDIE.    Abbotsholme.     George  Allen.     1900. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  259 


E.— ON    THE    MORAL    AND    PERSONAL    AIM 
IN   EDUCATION 

DOUGLAS  PEPLER.  The  Care  Committee,  the  Child, 
and  the  Parent.  Constable  &  Co.  1912. 

JANE  ADDAMS.  The  Spirit  of  Youth  and  the  City 
Streets.  Macmillan.  1910. 

C.  E.  B.  RUSSELL.  Manchester  Boys.  Sherratt  and 
Hughes.  1905. 

MARGARET  MCMILLAN.  The  Child  and  the  State. 
The  National  Labour  Press.  1911. 

EDITH  E.  READ  MUMFORD.  The  Dawn  of  Character: 
A  Study  of  Child  Life.  Longmans.  1910. 

The  Unfolding  of  Personality  as  the  Chief  Aim  in 
Education.  Fisher  Unwin.  1910. 

EDWARD  THRING.    Addresses.    Unwin.    1899. 

CHARLOTTE  M.  MASON.  Home  Education.  Fourth 
Edition.  Kegan  Paul.  1905. 

CHARLOTTE  M.  MASON.  School  Education.  Kegan 
Paul.  1905. 

HERBART.  The  Aesthetic  (or  Ethical)  Presentation  of 
the  World  as  the  Chief  Work  of  Education.  Trans- 
lated by  E.  and  H.  M.  Felkin  in  The  Science  of 
Education  (Geo.  Allen  &  Co.);  and  by  W.  J.  Eckoff 
in  Herbarfs  A  B  C  of  Sense  Perception  (Appleton). 

M.  E.  SADLER  (Editor).  Moral  Instruction  and  Train- 
ing  in  Schools  :  An  International  Inquiry.  Long- 
mans. 1908. 

JEAN  DELVOLV£.  Rationalisme  et  Tradition :  Re- 
cherches  des  Conditions  tfEfficaeite  d*une  Morale 
Laique.  F.  Alean.  1910. 


260  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

VARIOUS  WRITERS.  Principles  of  Religious  Educa- 
tion. Edited  by  Bishop  Potter.  Longmans.  1901. 

B.  A.  KNOX  (Bishop  of  Manchester).  Pastors  and 
Teacher*.  Longmans.  1902. 

ATHELSTAN  RILEY,  M.  E.  SADLER,  and  CYRII* 
JACKSON.  The  Religious  Question  in  Education. 
Longmans.  1911. 

T.  RAYMONT.  The  Use  of  the  Bible  in  the  Education 
of  the  Young.  Longmans.  1911. 

The  Bible  for  Children.    Pilgrim  Press.    1912. 

The  Young  People's  Bible.  (Old  Testament.)  Pilgrim 
Press.  1913. 

The  Young  People's  Bible.  (New  Testament.)  In 
Preparation. 


INDEX 


ADDAMS,  Miss  Jane,  238. 

Adolescence,  238,  240,  242, 
250. 

After-school  days,  234. 

Agriculture,  education  in, 
155,  168-169. 

Aim  of  education,  24,  39. 

America,  education  in,  49, 
57,  62,  99,  115,  13&-139, 
145-146,  164-165. 

Anticipative  aspect  of  edu- 
cation, 23,  106-107. 

Arnold,  Matthew,  21,  102. 

Arnold,  Dr,  30,  75,  249. 

Athletics,  72,  215-216. 

BACCALAUREAT      examina- 
tion, 232. 
Bacon,  Lord,  67. 
Baden-Powell,  General,  240. 
Benson,  A.  C.,  102. 
Boarding  schools,  42-43. 
Burt,  Thomas,  24. 

CARE  committees,  201, 233- 
235. 

Carlyle,  164. 

Central  control,  60-63. 

'Central'  schools,  80,  81. 

Character-building,  32,  39, 
40,43,  118,119,178,182, 
189,  190,  193,  205,  209, 
212,  216,  221-226. 

Child-labour,  228. 

Classical  education,  66,  67, 
71,  83,  84,  97,  102,  103, 
120,  243,  245,  246. 


Continuation  schools,  236, 

237. 
Criticisms    of    present-day 

education,  25-28,  46,  47. 
Curricula,  elementary 

school,  88-101,  133-137, 

248. 
,  secondary  school,  101 

-105,  125-131. 
,    efficiency-value    of, 

109,  110,  125,  126. 
,  trades  schools,  159- 

161. 
,  Supplementary 

courses  (Glasgow),  151. 

DARROCH,  Professor,  209. 
Day  schools,  school  spirit 

in,  43. 

Delvolve,  M.,  250. 
Demolins,  M.,  193. 
Dewey,  Professor,  140. 
'Dooley,'  Mr,  on  education, 

203,  204. 
Drawing,  94,  183. 

ELEMENTARY  schools  (pub- 
lic), 44. 

Empire  and  education,  30, 
31,  111-113,  125-128. 

Employment  on  leaving 
school,  232-234. 

English,  the  teaching  of, 
95,  118,  119,  131. 

Environment  and  education 
113-115,  199. 

Examinations,  219,  232. 


262 


INDEX 


FINDLAY,  Professor,  100. 
France,   education   in,    27, 

49,  62,  229,  232. 
French,  the  teaching  of,  97, 

98. 
Froebel,  86,  87. 

GAMES,  72,  214^217. 
Gardening,  courses  in,  130, 

155,  177,  211. 
Geography,     94,     110-113, 

207. 

Geometry,  practical,  94. 
George    Junior    Republic, 

198,  199. 
German,  the  study  of,  129, 

134,  135,  246. 
Germany,  education  in,  27, 

29,  33,   162,  163,  237. 
Glasgow,        supplementary 

Elementary    courses    in, 

151. 
— ,    continuation    school 

courses  in,  236. 
Glazebrook,  M.  G.,  104, 105. 
Grammar,  97,  119,  120. 
Greard,  M.,  231,  232. 

HANDWORK    in    education, 

94,  122-124,  129,  130. 
Harris,  W.  T.,  57. 
Higher  elementary  schools, 

80,  81. 
History,  study  of,  95,  131, 

132. 
Holmes,  E.,  26,  181,  186- 

191. 
Home  and  school,  226,  228. 

INDIVIDUALITY,    174,    178, 

186,  195,  206,  222,  224, 

248. 
Infants,  education  of,  86- 

88,  220. 
Insect    pests    and    nature 

study,  116-118. 
Inspection  of  schools,  54- 

60,  75,  195-197. 


Instinct  and  education,  187, 
188,  208,  211,  212,  243. 

Intermediate  schools 

(Wales),  77,  81. 

JENA,  as  centre  of  study  of 

education,  29. 
Juvenile  Employment 

Bureaux,  233. 

KERSCHENSTEINER,  Dr,  162 
Knowledge,        cargo        or 
power?  99,  100. 

LANGUAGE,    study   of,   95, 

119-122. 
Latin   in   schools,    66,    67, 

97. 

Lay  moral  instruction,  250. 
Leaving    certificates,    229— 

232. 
Local  control  in  education, 

60-63. 
Locke,  67. 

Lodge,  Sir  Oliver,  246,  247. 
Logic,  as  branch  of  language 

study,  120-122. 

MCMILLAN,  Miss  Margaret, 
238. 

Manual  occupations,  122- 
124,  126,  129,  146,  176, 
184,  217,  223. 

Maurice,  F.  D.,  106. 

Memory  work  and  brain- 
fag, 219,  229,  232. 

Merit  Certificates  (Scot- 
land), 230. 

Method  in  education,  100, 
218,  219,  248. 

Miers,  Sir  H.  A.,  249. 

Montessori,  Dr,  86,  87, 
172-186,  199,  200. 

Moral  aim  in  education,  182, 
221-226. 

Munich,  continuation 

schools  in,  162. 

Music  in  education,  189. 


INDEX 


263 


NAAS,  centre  of  Sloyd  teach- 
ing, 29. 

National  importance  of  edu- 
cation, 82-89. 

National  Union  of  Teachers 
(President  of,  1912),  249. 

Nature  Study,  94,  113,  114, 
187-139. 

,  practical  values  of, 

114-118,  155. 

New  education,  the,  206, 
207. 

Nietzsche,  208. 

OPPORTUNITIES  for  elemen- 
tary school  children, 
Preface,  p.  8,  76-83, 
140-163,  202,  208-214, 
223-230. 

PARENTS'  interest  in  educa- 
tion, 64,  181,  227. 

Parker,  Colonel  Francis, 
204. 

Paton,  J.  L.,  168,  169,  249. 

Patriotism,  44,  45,   197. 

P£eant,  F.,  247. 

Pestalozzi,  86,  87. 

Physical  bases  of  educa- 
tion, 209-211,  215-218, 
243. 

*  Practical '        scholarships, 

158,  159. 

Progressiveness  of  educa- 
tion, 22,  23,  106,  107. 

*  Public  School*  education, 

40-42,   65-75,   102,   246, 
247. 

RASHDALL,  H.,  67. 

Rawnsley,  Canon,  239. 

Religious  instruction,  Pre- 
face, p.  11,  49-54,  134, 
249-000. 

'Revival  of  learning,'  a 
twentieth  century,  249. 

Rotterdam,  schools  in,  29, 
30. 


Roy  croft  Shop,  the,  198. 
Ruskin,  129. 
Russell,  C.  E.  B.,  238. 
Russia,  educational  reform 
demanded  in,  27. 


SADLER,  M.  E.,  37,  58,  237, 

249. 
Scholarship     systems,     68, 

69,  73,  76-79,  158,  159, 

169. 
School-life,   35,   36,   42-44, 

101,  192,  193,  203,  204. 
Scotland,  education  in,  48, 

149-151,   236,    237,   244, 

245. 
Scouts,  Boy  and  Girl,  47, 

169,  240. 
Secondary   schools,    66-68, 

82,  83,  101-105,  124-131, 

164r-168,    192,    193,   246, 

247. 
Self-realisation,  an  aim  in 

education,  176. 
Shakespeare  and  the   new 

pedagogues,  166. 
Silence  as  a  factor  in  the 

child's  development,  178, 

179. 

Smith,  Bompas,  250. 
Specialisation,  69,  73,  74. 
Spencer,  Herbert,  24. 
Spenser,    E.,    and    Saxon 

speech,  66. 
Spontaneity   in   education, 

146,   149,   174-181,   187- 

191,   192-194,   197,  208- 

212,  219,  224,  242. 
Supervision  of  schools,  54, 

57,  195-197. 
Superintendentsof  American 

schools,  54. 

Supplementary        Elemen- 
tary Courses  (Scotland), 

149,  156. 

Swiss  law  against  vulgarisa- 
tion of  life,  239. 


264 


INDEX 


TEACHER,  the,  31,  82,  212, 

214,    215,    222-226,   233, 

248,  249,  250. 
Thring,  Edward,  32,  48,  75, 

85,    129,    191,    192,    208. 

249. 
Translation,  value  of,  120, 

UNIVERSITIES  and  the 
schools,  72,  74,  75,  83, 
84,  103. 

VOCATIONAL  education, 
140-142,  170,  171. 

• in  elementary  schools, 

142-158. 


VOCATIONAL        education, 

in     Trade     and      Craft 

Schools,  158-162. 
as  feature  of  secondary 

school     education,     126, 

164^-168,  130. 
Vulgarisation        of        life, 

against  the,  239. 

WALES,   education   in,   77, 

81. 

Ward,  Dr  James,  24. 
Welton,  J.,  218,  219. 
Wilson,  Canon,  50,  249, 

250,  251. 
Withers,  H.  L.,  247,  249. 


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